


After All These Years

by st_mick



Series: He is the Sun... [10]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Torchwood
Genre: All his friends try to help, Making up for lost time, Multi, Rory reunites with his family, The Paradox is Finally Broken!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 04:16:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: The paradox is broken, the loop is closed, and Rory is able to reunite with his family.  There is some very fine helloing with his beloveds, though the reality of recent traumas is evident, both in his scars, and in his nightmares.Jack has an idea for dealing with it, and once farewells are made, Rory describes his years apart from them before allowing his grieving to happen.





	1. Paradox Lost

Rory paced the length of T’Challa’s royal talon fighter like a caged animal.  Through trial and error – and a great deal of discomfort on Rory’s part, they had determined that they could not come within a fifty mile radius of the cemetery without feeling the paradox strengthen.  A familiar voice came over the coms.

“You doing all right, Gramps?” Clint asked. 

Rory had been growing increasingly agitated as the week had progressed.  Steve, Natasha, Clint, Sam, and Wanda had shown up, as promised, two weeks out.  After Rory recounted precisely what had occurred (would occur), they developed a plan. 

Clint and Natasha had done several reconnaissance trips with Okoye and Ayo.  With their footage, they were able to determine the exact place that Rory’s younger self would land, after causing the paradox.  Once the location was found, they were also able to find and/or create ample cover from which to observe, and then attack.

“He is fine,” Okoye answered from her perch beside Shuri when it became clear that Rory would not respond.  She watched as he paced to and fro, and she recognized that this was not a case of nerves.  “The paradox is still paining to you, isn’t it?”

“What?” Steve asked.  “You never mentioned that.”

“It wasn’t like this, the other times,” Rory said, his voice showing his strain.

“You are closer than ever to the eye of the storm,” Shuri said, watching him.  They had discussed the possible effects.  To her mind, this was not unexpected.  That did not make it any easier to watch Rory's discomfort, though.

“I shall move us to a sixty mile radius, and see if it helps,” T’Challa said from the cockpit area.

Rory’s discomfort seemed to ease, though he kept pacing.  Okoye smiled.  _This_ was where the nerves came in.

“We’ve got this, Rory,” Natasha reassured.

“You have to remember not to look,” Rory said, then caught himself.  “Sorry.  Sorry, I know you know what to do.”  They had been over the plan so many times, already.  He trusted his friends, but there were just so many variables.

“We’ll keep our eyes on the TARDIS until we hear Amy scream,” Wanda promised.

The nature of the weeping angel was like nothing they had ever encountered, before.  For years, Rory had been working on a design for a device to imprison or immobilize the angels, and Shuri had helped him to produce a prototype, but it was difficult to know whether it would work.  And what to do with the angel, once it was neutralized, assuming they even _could_ neutralize it?

Too many variables.

Rory kept pacing.  He had to be sent back.  But then, once he was, they had to keep Amy from trying to join him.

“Still nothing.  When does this party start, anyway?” Sam asked.

“It was late afternoon.  I was about to suggest a pub,” Rory murmured. 

“How many years in the States, and you still call it a pub?” Clint chided.

All of a sudden, the air became thick and heavy.  Rory swayed on his feet as his hearts seemed to slow.

“Something is happening,” Okoye said, her voice tense.  She and Shuri rose.

T’Challa turned to see Rory falling to his knees.  “Moving further out,” he said, taking the plane to seventy-five miles out, and then one hundred.  “How big is this event?” he wondered.

“Must be ripples.  Still nothing, here,” Steve reported.

Rory gasped for air as Okoye lay him on the floor. 

“His hearts are slowing,” Shuri said, frowning. 

She pulled out the two small devices Rory had shown her.  Placing one over each heart, she pushed the button to turn them on.  Rory’s hearts began to regulate, and after a few minutes, he sat up.

“Your body is reacting as though you are bleeding to death,” Shuri was watching her monitor.

“It will be soon, then.  First I’ll have to… aargh!”  He felt a sharp pain in the heart he had stabbed, all those years ago.

T’Challa took them further away.  Rory gritted and breathed through the pain, then felt the brush of the howling against his skin and echoing through his mind.  He shuddered and then moved to the bank of screens they had set up, to watch the video feed.

A blinding flash of light, and suddenly the TARDIS was there, with Amy, River and the Doctor standing before it, and Rory lying on the ground.

“They’re here,” Rory said, his voice filled with awe.  He felt Okoye and Shuri hug him.  He watched as his younger self gasped awake, looked around, then fell back onto his back with a groan, seeming to collect himself.  “That is bloody _weird_ ,”

“Rory the Roman, you are brilliant!” the Doctor exclaimed, hugging River. 

Amy smacked Rory on the arm.  “Don’t you ever do anything like that, ever again, do you hear me?”  Then she leaned down and kissed him hard before leaping up to hug the Doctor and River. 

“Look away, now,” Rory said, diverting his eyes from the screen.

The next few seconds were the longest of his life.  Finally, Amy screamed, “Rory!”

Rory felt a sort of _pop_ as the loop closed and the paradox snapped.  “It’s over,” he breathed, sagging with relief.

“We’re heading back,” T’Challa turned the fighter as he spoke.

Rory watched in horror as Amy stared down the angel and began saying her goodbyes to the Doctor and River.  “No,” he gritted.

“We’ve got her,” Clint said.

“Raggedy Man,” Amy said, turning to the Doctor, “Goodbye.”

In that moment, Steve ran up and bowled them over as Wanda set a protective bubble around them.  Out of nowhere, a repulsor blast knocked the angel back several feet as Tony and Vision landed before it. 

“What the hell is going on?” Rory shouted down the coms.

“Keep a lookout, will you?” Tony instructed Vision.

“Don’t look it in the eye!” Sam, Natasha, Wanda and Clint all called out.  Vision nodded, keeping a vigil over the creature.

“Tony?” Steve stood, disbelieving.  Sam, Natasha, and Clint all faced him, aiming their weapons.

“No!” Tony shouted.  “I’m not here to fight!”  He quickly opened and stepped out of his suit, his hands raised in a placating gesture.  “We’re here for Gramps.”

“How did you know where to come?” Steve demanded.

Tony looked sheepish.  “Wanda may have mentioned it to Vision.”

The others rounded on Wanda, but were interrupted.

“NO!” Amy screamed.  “What have you done?”  She grabbed Steve by the arm and swung him around. 

Steve looked at her, and then at the Doctor and River.  “You,” he smiled.  “You’re Amy.  And the Doctor.  And Melody.”

The Doctor and River stared, but Amy was in a rage.  “You need to go!  I need to follow him!”

“You can’t,” Steve said, his eyes apologetic but his tone firm.  “You can’t, because you didn’t.”

The Doctor pulled Amy to him.  “Amy, let them explain.”

“I’m Steve Rogers.  This is Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, and Vision.”

Before he could go any further, he was interrupted by three loud reports, sounding like small canons.  The angel was enveloped from the back and both sides by an orange energy field.  “Triangulated,” a man’s voice could be heard as three figures quickly approached, disregarding the plethora of weapons aimed at them.  The stranger placed a large, cylindrical mechanism near the base of the angel’s right side.  “Set!”

A dark haired woman came up and placed another to the angel’s left.  “Set.”

A man in a flowing gray vintage military coat placed a third behind the angel.  “Set.”

“Jack?” the Doctor frowned.

Jack strolled up to them, pushing through… the Avengers?  He grinned.  That never got old.  He hugged Amy.  “It’ll be all right, Amy, but we need to take care of the angel.  Then I’ll explain.”  He reached out and gave River’s arm a squeeze and kissed the Doctor on the cheek.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Tony asked, eyeing Jack up and down. 

“Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood.  Over there are Gwen Cooper and Rex Matheson,” Jack smiled, and Tony finally realized why Rory had laughed so hard when Ross had threatened to call in Torchwood to help capture the Doctor.  “Hello, Agent Romanoff,” Jack said, taking Natasha’s hand.

“Stop it,” the Doctor muttered, seemingly out of habit, as he sonicked the angel.

“Just saying hello,” Jack grinned. 

“I don’t mind,” Natasha chuckled.  At Rory’s chuckle, she added, “Hush.”

Jack turned to Steve.  “Captain Rogers, long time, no see.”  He spared a wink for Tony.

“Captain Harkness,” Steve looked uneasy.

Clint and Natasha shifted, reading their leader’s body language.  They heard Rory chuckling, again.  “It’s all right.  He’s just worried Jack’s going to flirt with him as shamelessly as he did, the last time they met.”

“That’s not true,” Steve blurted, but he was blushing.  Natasha and Clint chuckled.

“Got someone on coms?” Jack winked.

“Jack, what is happening?” the Doctor broke in.

“We have to get that angel out of here.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.  “No.”  The angels had been trying to get aboard the TARDIS for years, now.  No way was he going to just let one right in.

“That’s a quantum field stabilizer.  It should keep it trapped until we can offload it.”

“Should?” the Doctor challenged.

“Captain, I am sensing a disruption in the energy field,” Vision reported, though it was unclear which Captain he was addressing.

In the next moment, one of the stabilizers failed.  It was as though the energy emanating from it was forced back into it, and the apparatus shattered.  Within seconds, the other two followed suit.

Jack cursed.

“Here,” Natasha stepped forward and handed a small saucer-shaped disk to Steve. 

Tony snatched it from Steve’s hands.  As Steve rolled his eyes, the Doctor sonicked the device.  “A quantum field _randomizer_?” he exclaimed.  “Where did you get this?”

“Gramps designed it and Shuri helped him build it,” Steve said. 

Tony looked annoyed.  “I had him in Stark Tower all those years, and _this_ is what he can do?”

“Excuse me, but who are Gramps and Shuri?” the Doctor asked, his curiosity piqued by the nifty piece of tech.

Natasha smiled.  “Gramps is our nickname for Rory, Doctor.”

The Doctor blinked.  Looked at the tech, then back at Natasha as Rory muttered something over the coms.  “ _Rory_ designed this?”

“No flies on the Roman,” Natasha deadpanned, bristling a bit at the Doctor’s surprise and repeating what Rory had muttered.  “He’s had a while to work on this, you know.”

“When did he land?” the Doctor asked quietly, looking abashed as River took a peek at the apparatus.

“New York, 1940.”

Amy turned and started crying onto River’s shoulder.  It was River who thought to ask.  “And where is he now?”

“Before this one got sent back, he couldn’t get too close, because of the paradox.  Then as the moment approached, it got a little painful for him, so they went further out.  But they’re on their way back, now.”

“We have to do this now,” Jack said, taking the randomizer and setting it before the angel.

Almost immediately, the angel was enveloped in a pale blue light.

Vision’s eyes widened.  “It does not like that, at all.”

“How can you tell?” Jack asked.

“It’s fighting it.  I can sense it fighting the lock.”

“It’s going to blow, like the stabilizers did,” the Doctor frowned.

“This power supply is much more stable,” Vision said.  “It is holding.”

“What is it?” the Doctor and Tony both asked at the same time.

“Vibranium,” Natasha answered.

“Oh,” the Doctor looked thoughtful.  “Oh, that is clever.  That might just do it.”

“Can we go, now?” Jack looked impatient.  “We need to get it out of here, before he arrives.  And we need to get you back, before he gets here.”

“What about you?” the Doctor frowned.

“I’ll explain it all, I promise.  But we need to go.”

“It’s still fighting, but the field is holding,” Vision said.  “It is tiring itself out.  I do not believe it will be able to break free.”

“Would you mind coming along?” Jack asked Vision.  “It would be good to know as much as we can.”

“How will we move it?” the Doctor asked as River herded Amy into the TARDIS and opened both doors.

“Allow me,” Wanda stepped up and encased the angel, disk and all, in a shimmering red field of energy.  She lifted the angel and moved it towards the TARDIS.  “Where do you want it?”

“Right by the doors,” Jack answered, pushing the Doctor into the TARDIS and pulling Vision in, after him.  We’ll be right back.”

Tony had been craning his neck, looking inside.  Steve closed the doors and tapped them twice, as though it was the back of an ambulance.  Within seconds, the TARDIS dematerialized.

“Where are they going?” Rory asked, his voice making it clear that he was fighting panic.

“They’re taking the angel away,” Natasha answered.  “Jack says they’ll be right back.”

Rory sat down, hard.  He pulled off the heart regulators and returned them to his bag.  His hands were shaking. 

“What is it?” Okoye asked.

“The last time the Doctor said he’d be right back, he was gone for two years.  The time before that, it was twelve.”  His voice was quiet.

“Rory, Jack left his people here.  I’m sure they’ll be quick,” Steve reassured.

***

They were gone for three and a half weeks.  The Doctor managed to communicate with the angel, to determine where he could safely drop it off.  When they landed, the place was filled with angels trying to capture the TARDIS, but they were able to remove the randomizer and kick it out of the doors and dematerialize before the angels could attack. 

Jack read them the letter Peggy had asked Natasha to deliver to him, upon her death.  She had asked him to come see her on Thursday, August the first, 1940.  She told him exactly where she would be, and exactly what he needed to bring to her, including an inventory for the messenger bag. 

She also explained that she was Rory’s wife.

Amy took the news surprisingly well.  She was still in shock from losing him, but Peggy, ever the diplomat, explained that his beloveds were never far from his hearts or mind, in all their years together.  She pointed out that a man like Rory would not have survived as long as he had, if deprived of the ability to love. 

Diplomatic though she was, it must also be said that she was also completely unapologetic.

It took more than a week to gather everything, then a bit more time to put together the scrapbook, to visit Brian in 2014 and have him write a letter to Rory, and to get everything loaded into the messenger bag.  While Jack was visiting Peggy in 1940, the Doctor, Amy and River paid her a visit in Los Angeles in 1947 as her second letter, addressed to the Doctor, instructed.  It was that visit, she confided, that had allowed her to forgive Rory for not warning them of Steve’s fate.

Once they met back up with Jack, they discussed how best to keep Rory’s original timeline safe and intact, as interference (or even curiosity) from SHIELD or the likes of the secretary of state would be dangerous. 

It had taken all of Jack’s strength, when Natasha had brought him Peggy’s ashes for safekeeping, not to go after Rory.  He and Vision told the Doctor, Amy and River of Rory’s capture and subsequent rescue by Steve.  They did not speak of the torture, though Jack did try to give them some warning by telling them that Rory did not have an easy time of it, while in custody.  He made no mention of the Raft.

Vision was curious as he saw their reactions.  Amy was still tearful.  River looked murderous.  The Doctor had a dark expression that he quickly hid, seeming to favor the idea of gathering more information from Rory and focusing on the safety of his timeline, instead. 

They headed to the Royal Leadworth Hospital in 1989.  Vision was asked to wait in the garden when Peggy and the rest of Rory’s friends were spotted following the Doctor back to the TARDIS. 

Vision found the TARDIS endlessly fascinating, though it was disconcerting that she did not allow him to move through her walls, as he was accustomed to doing.  Well occupied by the wonders she allowed him to see, the time passed quickly, and soon it was time to return to the cemetery in New York in 2016.

***

The TARDIS rematerialized just as the royal talon fighter landed in a clearing, close by.  It had barely landed when Rory lowered the door and jumped down.  His legs were too shaky to run.  As he approached the group, he saw Jack striding away, heading for Gwen and Rex. 

“Jack?” he called out, diverting to stop him.

“See you around, Gorgeous!” Jack flashed him a grin and, once Gwen and Rex took hold of his arm, he activated the vortex manipulator on his arm and vanished.

“Jack?!”

“Dad, that’s 2016 Jack,” River caught his arm.  She had run over to him when he had headed for Jack.  Realizing Jack had held back on details, the Doctor had taken Steve by the arm and led him off to quietly ask him about Rory’s capture.  Natasha had asked Amy a question, knowing Rory needed a moment to speak to his daughter before becoming distracted by his wife.

“Melody,” Rory just stared at her for a long beat before wrapping her arms around her and burying his face in her mass of curls.  “My Melody, I’ve missed you,” he wasn’t crying, but it was a close thing.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, rubbing his back. 

When he finally released her, it was all she could do to hide her reaction.  His face was scarred, and he looked dreadful.  She reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek.  “Are you all right?”

“I am now,” he smiled.  “Can you do us a favor, though?”

“Anything,” she beamed.

“May first, 2014.  Cardiff.”

She grinned.  “And if he’s on the pull?”

“Tell him he just got a better offer.”

She laughed.  “I’ll go get him.”  They hugged again for a long moment before she stepped back.  In the next instant, she vanished, much like Jack had.

“What.  The hell,” Tony blinked.  “Captain Fantastic, yeah.  Fine.  But Gramps’ daughter…”

“Is also a time traveler.  You knew this,” Clint snarked, still pissed about his stint at the Raft.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know about that tech,” Tony said.  Then he looked at Clint.  “You okay?  They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“No.  Just him.”

Tony finally got a good look at Rory’s face.  “Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

As soon as Melody had walked away, Rory headed for the TARDIS.  Amy was standing in front of the doors, just staring at him.  He looked very different.  He was bigger, for one thing.  Broader.  He was wearing a close-fitting long-sleeved black shirt and black fatigues.  Black boots.  He looked more like a soldier than ever.  And his face…  She tried not to react to the scar, and focused instead on the love blazing in his eyes.

Rory watched her attempt to hide her reaction.  He knew he looked different.  He _was_ different.  He hoped she could live with that.  He hoped _they_ could live with that.  He was scared as hell, but he was also so glad to see her that he felt as though he could burst. 

“Watch the heart rates, Gramps!” he heard Shuri laughingly yell as she, Okoye and T’Challa approached.

He tore the watch monitoring his vitals off of his arm and shoved it at Natasha as he gathered Amy into his embrace.  For a moment, time stood still.  He rested his face against her neck and breathed her in.  He had to be careful to not hold her too tightly.  But years of practice at being gentle with aging bones had developed a habit.  Only as she held him tighter did he pull her closer.

“Rory,” she whispered fiercely.  “Don’t you ever do that, again.”

He pulled back, just far enough to look at her.  She looked pained, not cross.  He smiled.  Then he kissed her.  He loosed his hold on her and shoved one hand into her hair and cradled her face with the other. 

It was not a long kiss.  Not nearly long enough.  But it was thorough.  A reacquainting with something achingly familiar, but _so_ distant.  When he drew back, her eyes were dark and she was smiling at him in that way that used to stir his blood. 

Still did, apparently. 

He looked to his right and saw the Doctor standing there, looking pained and sorry.  “Come here, you,” he growled, and released Amy so he could hug the Doctor, as well.

 _Ren.  I’m so sorry_.

“Shut up,” Rory muttered, kissing the Doctor every bit as meticulously as Amy. 

When he finally broke the kiss, he pulled both of them to him.  Then, he pulled away.  “Right.  Everyone, we’ll be right back.”

Without another word, and with an economy of movement that was truly impressive, he shoved the Doctor through the door of the TARDIS, pulling Amy behind him.  Everyone chuckled as the TARDIS dematerialized again.

***


	2. Reunited

Once inside, Rory spoke to the TARDIS, thanking her for her help, through the years.  Once they were in the vortex, he took Amy and the Doctor to their room.  At first, his steps were purposeful, determined.  But as they drew nearer the door, he seemed to falter.  He stopped, turned, and drew them both into his arms.

“Rory?” Amy asked, concerned.

He was starting to shake.  “I want you both, so much.  But…”  He pulled them closer.

“You don’t have to tell us what happened,” the Doctor said quietly.  “You don’t need to talk about it, yet.”

Amy pulled away.  “What are you talking about?”

Rory leaned against the wall next to their bedroom door.  The Doctor reached up and traced the scar on Rory’s face, drawing back when Rory involuntarily flinched away from his touch.  “This isn’t the only one, is it?”

It took everything in Rory’s power, not to run from them, in that moment.  Fear, shame, and dread marched across his face in quick succession, as clearly as if the words had been stamped upon his forehead. 

Amy threw herself into his arms.  “I don’t care.  I just want you.  We will talk about it later – there’s going to need to be a lot of that, I think.  You have a lot to catch us up on.  But for now, you don’t have to say anything, and we won’t ask.  All right?”

Rory held them both for a long moment.  “It’s pretty bad,” he was trembling.  “I’ll show you, and you can decide… if it’s too much.”

They startled at his words, but then took him into the bedroom.  He took off his shirt and stood before them, refusing to look at them.

“Well,” the Doctor said.

“Yeah,” Amy replied.

“That really shouldn’t be…”

“And yet…”

Rory looked up and found both of them staring at him.  Amy’s eyes were sad and troubled, but there was a glint of something else, as well.  The Doctor didn’t seem so conflicted.  He was staring with outright… lust?

Rory looked down.  He was still appallingly scarred.  And, as Okoye never failed to point out, pasty.  He looked back up, confused.

“You’ve been working out,” Amy gave a smile that bordered on predatory.

“I would say he’s put on a good twenty pounds of muscle,” the Doctor said appraisingly, leaning in to Amy.

She leaned, as well.  “Lots of muscles,” she licked her lips and rolled her hip into the Doctor’s quickly growing erection. 

The Doctor moaned and took off her jacket, then his own.  He loosened his bowtie and lowered his braces as Amy took off her sweater.  They never took their eyes off of Rory, though their gazes roved from his face to his torso and back, each look feeling like a caress.  It was as though, for now, they were in a state of grace.  There was only admiration for the positive changes in his body, without any dwelling on the negative.

It was precisely what Rory needed.  He took off his boots and socks, noting that they were doing the same.  Then he took off his trousers and stood before them, showing even more scars but also displaying a physique that was quite different from the one they had been used to.  And as much as they had loved Rory, just as he was, this was an intriguing change, at least for now.

He was bigger, yes.  But it was more definition than bulk.  His musculature had developed as a natural byproduct of the level and type of activity he had maintained, particularly as that had been his only outlet, during Meg’s decline.  He shook his head.  Now was not the time for those thoughts. 

He looked back to the Doctor and Amy, who were deliciously lewd in their reaction to seeing him like this.  Amy was grinding against the Doctor as his hands teased her breasts before moving down her body, unbuttoning her jeans and pushing them down, along with her knickers.  She kicked out of them, then strode over to Rory as the Doctor removed his own trousers.

Amy pressed her body against Rory’s and kissed him, long and deep.  She felt a rumble erupt from his chest as he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed.  She let out a laughing yelp as she landed.  Rory reached over and drew the Doctor to him, kissing him for a few moments before pushing him onto the bed beside Amy.

The first time was quick, but deeply satisfying.  The Doctor lay beside them but did not join in, except to kiss each of them, as the opportunity arose.  Rory was inside Amy almost as soon as he was on top of her, groaning loudly at the sensation of finally – _finally_ – being with her, once more.  It was all he could do, not to come right then.

He leaned up, looking down at her.  _I’ve missed you both, so much_.  The Doctor kissed him even as Amy sank her teeth into his neck and wrapped her legs around his flank and pulled him into her.  For the first time in Amy’s recollection, Rory lost control.  He thrust into her, hard and fast, and within seconds they were both coming apart, Rory crying out her name.  He collapsed on top of her as they both fought to regain their breath.

“My turn,” the Doctor muttered, his voice deep and hungry.  He pulled Rory away from Amy and lay him on his belly.  Amy turned on her side to watch as the Doctor licked and bit his way from Rory’s neck to his arse.  He took an appreciative bite, even as he made a mental note to find out the last detail of each and every scar on his beloved’s body.

Rory’s hips bucked and he moaned loudly when the Doctor’s clever tongue began circling his hole.  The Doctor gripped Rory’s hips to keep him still.  “How long has it been?” he whispered before running his tongue across the sensitized skin.  “How long, since you’ve been fucked?”

Rory moaned.  “Seventy-six years, two months, one week, five days, nineteen hours and twenty-two minutes,” he gasped the last as the Doctor thrust his tongue deep inside.  Just like that, he was hard, again.

“Well we’re going to have to do something about that, aren’t we?” the Doctor continued his attentions for a few moments before grabbing the bottle of lube from the night table.  He made Rory moan again as he pressed the first finger inside.  He moved up Rory’s body and kissed his neck, then nipped his ear.

The Doctor moaned as he added another digit.  “Rory, you are so tight,” he growled.  He felt a shiver of apprehension and anticipation.  He did not want to hurt Rory, but he also knew how incredible this would feel. 

He spent a good deal of time preparing Rory, who by now was begging for more.  “Theta, please,” he pleaded.

The Doctor smiled.  He turned Rory over and placed a pillow under his hips.  Then he kissed Rory long and hard before pouring lube over his throbbing cock.  Rory gasped at the first sensation of invasion, but Amy began kissing him and took hold of him, giving him several teasing pulls as his body became accustomed to the Doctor’s, once more.

Rory was so tight, it almost hurt.  But it felt so incredible, it took every last scrap of the Doctor’s patience to wait for Rory to relax around him.  He felt the shift the second it happened.  Very, very slowly, he pushed all the way in, then waited again.  As Rory began moving against him, he started rocking his hips back and forth.  Soon Rory was pleading again, and the Doctor began moving in earnest.

He rolled his hips and hit Rory’s prostate, causing him to cry out.  Keeping that angle, the Doctor thrust again and again, repeatedly hitting that sweet spot, and Rory was babbling in Latin as Amy bit and then sucked his nipple and tugged faster on his cock.  Rory came with a shout, his muscles clamping down on the Doctor with an intensity that pulled his own orgasm from him. 

They collapsed in a heap next to Amy.  The Doctor kissed Rory languorously as they caught their breath.  Rory pulled away and looked at the Doctor hungrily. 

“My turn,” he grinned.

***

The next day, Rory kept Amy spread before him for hours, using mouth, tongue, teeth and fingers to make her come apart, again and again and again.  The Doctor played his part, enjoying this game, keeping her engaged with dirty snogs and wicked promises whispered in her ear as he toyed with her breasts and ran his fingers through Rory’s hair.

He was extraordinarily aroused as Amy, coming down from another orgasm, begged for a moment’s rest.  Rory chuckled and turned his attention to the Doctor.  Rory teased him for hours before allowing him to come, screaming Gallifreyan curses as his body arched from the bed.

Once he calmed, he and Amy mounted a counteroffensive.

***

The three collapsed into a puddle, sweating and trying to catch their breath.  It had been days, and Rory was beginning to feel a bit alarmed that his body wasn’t beginning to regulate.  Early on, the Doctor had recognized that the reaction was multi-level. 

Physically, it was a hormonal rebalancing as Rory was finally able to stop sublimating his sex drive.  He had been doing so gradually for years, as Peggy’s age had diminished her interest.  They had stayed fairly active, considering, right up until her illness struck, but that was significantly less active than in Peggy’s younger years.  And when she became ill, Rory had poured himself into her care, diverting all of his energies to that.

He had been confused, because he had sublimated his sex drive almost entirely for almost all of his first decade in the past.  Coming out of it had not been like this, or his Meg would likely have left him before the honeymoon was over.  But the Doctor hypothesized that the trauma of recent events had somehow impacted Rory’s physical recovery from the sublimation.

At an emotional level, Rory was trying to acclimate to having Amy and the Doctor back.  Part of him could not believe it was real, so his need stemmed both from the fear that he was dreaming (again) as well as that he might lose them (again). 

The Doctor and Amy endeavored to reassure him, but found they could only do so on the physical level, because he was emotionally overwhelmed.  They recognized that this was not only because of the joy of seeing them again.  It was also touched by the shadow of his loss, and of what had happened at the Raft.

So far, they only knew what Steve had quickly relayed to the Doctor prior to their reunion.  The Doctor had insisted on knowing the details of what Jack and Vision had alluded to.  Steve had very succinctly told him of Rory’s disagreement with Ross over the Accords, Ross’ capturing Rory in London, and that Rory had endured a week of torture at the Raft as Ross had attempted to gather information regarding the Doctor.  The Doctor had quickly relayed what he knew to Amy as Rory showered, their first night together. 

***

Rory had become used to sleeping alone.  Usually on the sofa in his and Peggy’s bedroom.  Since his rescue, he had not slept much, at all.  So while deeply comforting and by no means unwelcome, being wrapped up in his beloveds was an unfamiliar sensation.  He did not sleep, but watched them as they did.  After they woke, they loved again for some hours, and then – finally – Rory slept.

Amy got up to shower, hoping the hot water would alleviate some of her soreness, though she did not regret a single twinge or ache.  As she made her way back from the bathroom, the Doctor rose and headed that way.  In those few seconds, the loss of contact with either of them caused Rory to panic in his sleep.

He woke up screaming.  The Doctor attempted to nudge into his mind, to calm him, but he was no longer used to such familiarities with anyone besides Peggy, and he shut himself away.  It took longer without the Doctor’s assistance, but he did eventually calm.  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking embarrassed.

“Shhh,” Amy soothed.  “It’s all right.  But won’t you tell us?”

“Please.  Please, no,” he begged, cowering away from her.  “I can’t…”

She pulled him back to her.  “It’s all right.  You don’t have to.  Not tonight.  But Rory, you know you’ll need to talk to us, yeah?”

He nodded, miserable.  “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” the Doctor said in a firm voice.  “This is not on you.  Don’t you see?  You are extraordinary!  Here you are, back with us after almost _eighty_ years, and after all you’ve been through, you’re still our Ren.”

“Am I?” Rory quavered.  “How can you be so sure?  I… I’ve done things, Doctor.  I’ve fought.  For the 107th, in the War, for SHIELD… I have buckets of Chitauri blood on my hands, from the Battle of New York.  I think…  I think you would be ashamed, if you knew.”

“Rory, I do know,” the Doctor’s voice was gentle.  “We spent three weeks preparing the messenger bag for you.  Do you think, in all that time, we didn’t do some homework?  Do you think Peggy didn’t tell us about a lot of things, in her letter?”

“Rory, we are so proud of you,” Amy said.  “I love you,” she whispered, crawling into his lap and kissing him softly. 

They spoke very little, after that.

***

River and Jack arrived a few minutes after the TARDIS left.  Jack looked around, smiling.  “Captain Jack Harkness,” he grinned, seeming to flirt with everyone at once, with that one introduction.

“You’re kidding, right?” Tony rolled his eyes.

Jack frowned.  “Do I know you?  I mean, you’re Tony Stark, but we haven’t met, have we?”

“You will, later,” River said as Jack spotted Steve.

“Captain Rogers, been a long time.”

Steve frowned and looked at River.

“I’ve just brought Jack from May 2014,” she said pointedly, relying on them to remember that she had told Rory that the other Jack was the current, 2016 version.

“I’m getting a headache,” Wanda groaned.

Just then, they heard the TARDIS rematerializing.

“Best sound in the universe,” Jack grinned broadly.  “That never gets old.”

“No, it doesn’t,” River returned his smile.  She gave him a slight push.  “Go on, then.”

Jack rapped on the door, which opened immediately.  A scarred arm reached out, grabbed him by the shirt, and they got the briefest glimpse of Rory, wearing nothing but a towel, hauling Jack into the TARDIS, kissing him fiercely.

Before the door could close, Amy bounded out, a sheet wrapped around her and a bundle of clothes in her arms.  As she shut the door, the Doctor could be heard shouting, “Amelia Pond, you traitor!”

She grinned as she shut the door.  “See you in a quarter hour.  Have fun, boys!”

The TARDIS dematerialized again.

“Mother,” River’s voice was playful.  “Why are you here?”

“I needed a break!” Amy declared dramatically, turning.  She looked thoroughly debauched, and none could deny that it was a stunning look, for her.  “Be a dear and hold this up, yeah?”

River reached out and whacked Steve, who was nearest, on the arm.  “Help hold up the sheet, will you?”

Steve looked embarrassed, but helped.  Amy unwound the sheet and Steve, diverting his gaze, helped River hold it up around her as she dumped her clothes on the ground and began dressing.

“How long have you been gone?”

“Eight days, the Doctor says.”

“Couldn’t you have just rested in a different bedroom?” River asked.

“With all three of them on board?” came the saucy reply.  She peeked up over the sheet in front of River and kissed her nose.  “I can resist anything, except temptation.”

River laughed.

She was quickly dressed, and turned to the others, her expression deadly serious.  “Besides, I have questions.”

“Damn,” Tony muttered.

Amy reached out and grabbed Steve’s arm.  Momentarily distracted, she squeezed his bicep for a few seconds with a giggle, before sobering.  “So who’s going to tell me about the Raft?”

“The Raft?” River startled.

There was a lot of shuffling about and people staring at their toes before Amy lost her temper.  “You think I haven’t seen his scars, by now?  For the moment, we’re not making him talk about it, because frankly he can’t seem to.  So someone here _is_ going to tell me.  _Now_.”

“Mother?” River’s voice was shaken.  “What are you talking about?”

Natasha stepped forward.  “You know he was married to Peggy Carter?”

“Yes.  We met her in 1947, and again in 1989, when she and a bunch of friends showed up the day Rory was born.”

“And you know that Peggy died four months ago.”

Amy’s eyes widened.  “So recently?  Oh, Rory,” she muttered, her eyes filling with tears.  She sniffed.  “No, Jack didn’t tell us when she died, just that she’d left a letter for him.”

“I delivered it,” Natasha said.  “Along with Peggy’s ashes.”

“Yes, we have them, now.”

Natasha looked at the others, who were still reluctant to speak.  “Do you know who General Ross is?”

“Secretary of State,” River spoke up.  “Nasty piece of work, by all accounts.”  She saw surprised looks around her and waved.  “Archaeologist.  History does not remember him kindly.”

“Yeah, well.  He didn’t get on well with Director Carter,” Tony spoke up.  “And by extension, he did not like Gramps, at all.”

“So he didn’t take kindly when Rory made a rather convincing argument against the Accords, back in June, just before they were ratified,” Steve spoke up.

“Wait.  What are the Accords?” Amy asked.

Steve quickly explained.  “All powered persons are meant to register.”

“A list?” Amy said with disdain.  “Who the hell thought _that_ was a good idea?”

“Never known a list not to be abused,” River shook her head.  “Including the Accords, by the way.”

“River, you shouldn’t,” Amy protested.

“No, I shouldn’t.  But I think I know where this is going.  Ross was… is a vindictive, petty man.  And he abused his position on more than one occasion, to satisfy his personal vendettas.  What did he do to my father?” her voice was calm, but it had a dangerous undertone to it that had the others wanting to take a step back.

“Rory was captured on his way to Peggy’s funeral,” Natasha said.

“He missed her funeral?”  River blanched.  “That alone...”

“And we probably won’t be able to fix it, because of the bloody paradox,” Amy hissed, her heart aching for Rory.

River shook her head sadly.  “And then?”

Natasha smacked Clint on the back of the head.  “Go on.  You and Sam were there.”

“But you’re both Avengers.  Why were you at the Raft?” Amy asked, confused.  The Doctor had told her that it was a secret super-max prison for the worst of criminals, usually those with powers.

“You wanna take that one, champ?” Clint turned to Tony.

“I don’t care,” River thundered.  “Tell us what happened!”

Clint sighed.  “Ross had already had him for a couple of days, when we got there.”  He hesitated, but saw the dangerous glint in River’s eyes.  “They beat him.  And they used a cattle prod.  And an electric whip.”

“Why?” River’s voice was low, almost feral.

“They wanted to know when the Doctor would land.  Through the years, enough people knew about Gramps that the year was common knowledge.  I think Ross figured it’d be a feather in his cap, to be the one to finally capture the Doctor.  The bonus would be to hurt Rory and insult Peggy’s memory,” Clint said, his voice angry.

“The day they argued, Ross threatened to lock up Amy and Peggy, and bragged about having reached out to UNIT and Torchwood for help in capturing the Doctor,” Tony added.

Amy and River chuckled.

“Yeah, that was his reaction.  He laughed in Ross’ face.  I didn’t know Gramps even knew how to be contemptuous, but in fairness, Ross had threatened three of his loved ones, all in one go.”

River shook her head.  “But what could have possessed Dad to provoke Ross in such a way?”

“Other than he’s hyper-protective of the ones he loves?” Natasha asked ironically.  Then she sighed.  “Peggy had just died, a couple of hours before.  Not sure he was in full control of his reaction.”

“So they questioned him,” River was suddenly alert, looking around, her hand on the weapon strapped to her leg.  “What did they get out of him?”

Sam, Clint and Wanda all spoke.  “Renatus Lupus Petran.  Secundas-Pilus-Prior.  Legio Flavia Felix.”

River’s eyes widened.  “They didn’t break him.”

Clint shook his head.  “Wasn’t for lack of trying.  Ross brought in an urn that looked like Peggy’s.  Said Natasha had given it up.”

“Rory would have known better than that,” River said, having sized up Natasha.

Natasha shook her head sadly.  “He hoped, I think.  But he could tell that Ross was convinced.  So either I’d given them up, or I’d conned Ross.  But I hadn’t told Rory that I’d gotten a duplicate urn.  He had no way to know, for sure.”

“And what did this Ross pillock do with what he thought were Peggy’s ashes?” Amy spat.

Clint hung his head.  He couldn’t speak.  He still had nightmares about what his friend had gone through.  What he had been forced to helplessly watch.

Realizing that Clint couldn’t answer, Sam spoke up.  “Some he threw at Gramps.  Some he shoved down his throat.  He suffocated Gramps with the plastic bag that the ashes were in, but apparently that wasn’t enough fun because of Rory’s bypass… thingy.”  He stopped talking, feeling ill at the memory.

“And?” Amy asked, knowing there was more.

“He pissed in the rest and threw it at Rory.”

Amy reached out and took hold of River’s hand, a red mist of rage forming before her eyes.

“And why does he still have scars?” River asked, squeezing Amy’s hand.  “He shouldn’t…” she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she had to.

“They’d spend hours with him, each day.  Sometimes questioning, sometimes just making him scream.  Each time, before they left, they’d pump him full of adrenaline, to keep him from going into a healing coma,” Clint answered.

River gripped Amy’s hand more tightly.  “Adrenaline?” she asked faintly.  “It’s not really compatible.  That… that would have been excruciating.”

“It was,” Clint said, quietly.

“River?” Amy’s voice was shaking with rage.  “How about we go find this wanker?”

River gave herself a shake.  “We need to speak with the Doctor and Jack.  The Doctor will know what to do.”  A truly frightening smile spread over her face, reminding even her mother that she had been bred to be a psychopath.  “He is _terrifying_ when he his angry.”

Amy growled.  “How long did they have him?”

“Almost a week, I think.  Then Steve broke us out, with T’Challa’s help.”  Clint nodded to T’Challa, Shuri and Okoye.  “His highness gave Rory sanctuary these past months.”

Amy went to him and shook his hand.  “Thank you,” she said earnestly.  “I’m Amy, and this is River.  We weren’t introduced, earlier.”

“It is a pleasure,” T’Challa smiled. 

Shuri hugged Amy.  “Your husband is very ingenious.  It would be very sexy, if he wasn’t married.”

Okoye rolled her eyes.  “Rory is a brilliant warrior.  It has been a pleasure to know him, and to train with him.”

Amy was looking at the three of them, slightly bemused.  Ingenious?  Warrior?  “But… Rory’s a nurse.”

The others shifted.  Natasha spoke up again.  “He gave up medicine in the 1950’s and began studying mathematics, science, and engineering.”

River smiled.  “That’s my dad, Roar.  Everyone underestimates him, but he always has a plan.”  She grinned at Amy, who returned her smile, knowing River was right.  “He spent his time learning what he would need to know to fight the angel, when the time came.”

“Yes!” Shuri exclaimed with a smile.  “He had worked out so many theories regarding the quantum lock that the angels use as a defense mechanism, and he had even designed the device to trap it, but he was missing a power supply that the angel could not disrupt.  As soon as I saw his plans, I was able to help him with the missing piece, and we developed the prototype, in no time.”

“You’re a princess?” Amy asked.

Shuri nodded, humor glinting in her eyes.  “And also, the leader of the Wakandan Design Group.”

“That’s the best kind,” Amy grinned, but her smile faded.  “I can’t believe he gave up medicine.  He’s a brilliant nurse.”

“Well, he had plenty of practice with that,” Tony said quietly.  At their curious looks, he gave himself a shake, then chuckled.  “But giving up the profession had something to do with the other doctors in the 1950’s being a bunch of twats, I think.”

River and Amy laughed.  “Wait,” River caught up.  “Other doctors?”

“You really should talk to him,” Tony hedged.

“Oh, we will,” River said.

“Yeah,” Amy smiled.  “We would have already, but we got a little… sidetracked.”

No one could keep a straight face.

***


	3. Nightmares and Memories

Rory seemed to devour Jack, kissing him desperately as he pushed the greatcoat off of his shoulders and let it drop to the floor.  He lowered Jack’s braces and threw him against the doors, dropped to his knees, and then proceeded to suck Jack’s brains out through his balls before the Doctor could get them into the vortex. 

Jack dropped to the floor with his trousers still around his ankles.  “Jesus, Rory,” he panted, out of breath.  He usually prided himself on his stamina, but Rory had just blitz-attacked and overwhelmed him.  River had told him about the angel, but he felt like he was still trying to catch up.

Rory straddled him and kissed him slowly and deliberately and painstakingly, evidence of his own arousal resting heavily against Jack’s abdomen.  Jack’s hands roved over Rory’s body, appreciating the new muscles.  But Jack was careful to shield his thoughts – the scars on his lover’s body were horrifying. 

_And they were everywhere._

Rory leaned back, just to stare at Jack for a moment.  Jack’s eyes roved over Rory’s beloved face, noting the shadows around his eyes, the scar, the distantly haunted look…  But he also saw the joy, the relief, the love.

And the lust. 

Jack’s eyes shifted to the Doctor, who was watching from the console, also only wearing a towel.  He was smiling, but his eyes looked incredibly sad, and behind the sadness there was a well of rage that chilled Jack.  With false cheerfulness, the Doctor said, “Rory’s recovering from sublimation, Jack.  We thought you might be uniquely qualified to help.”

“Sublimation?” Jack asked, looking back at Rory, whose expression quickly shuttered.  He looked over Rory’s shoulder at the Doctor, who shook his head sadly.  “Right.  Well, I don’t know much about it, myself,” he grinned as Rory snorted, “but I understand you just have to let it all work its way out of your system, right?”  He spread his arms.  “Anything I can do to help,” he grinned.

Rory leaned back into him and did that thing with his tongue and teeth to the spot below Jack’s ear, and Jack let out a decadent moan as his eyes just sort of rolled back in his head and his body began to respond again.  “I have missed this spot, right here,” Rory whispered, kissing and then licking the spot again, eliciting another moan as he nipped at it.

The Doctor had come over to kneel by them, and Rory leaned over and traced one of his collarbones with his tongue.  “And this one,” he smiled as the Doctor shivered.  Rory kissed the Doctor before pulling Jack close and kissing him again, rising up onto his knees so he could lean Jack’s head back and stroke his throat as he kissed him deeply.

_Sweet Javic.  I have missed you._

Rory drew back again, looking down at Jack’s face, studying it.  It was as though he was making sure every feature was precisely as he had remembered it.  There was the slightest wrinkle between his eyebrows that told Jack that Rory was worried he may have had something wrong, all this time.  But the more he looked, the more the wrinkle of a frown smoothed out. 

Now he was just looking for the sheer joy of being able to do so.  The expression on his face was rapt as he traced a finger delicately over Jack’s features.

“River told me it’s been seventy-six years,” Jack said quietly.

“Shhhh,” Rory nibbled on Jack’s ear.  “There is a moratorium on talking until my hormones rebalance.  Right, Theta?”

For the first time in his life, Jack was unaffected by that particular attention to his ear.  He looked at the Doctor, who shrugged.  “We’re not discussing it, yet.”

“Okay,” Jack said, frowning as Rory continued to nibble.

“Rory is reacclimatizing,” the Doctor explained helpfully.

“Sounds reasonable,” Jack replied.

Rory released Jack’s ear and sighed.  He sat back and looked at Jack before standing up, hauling Jack to his feet, and helping him pull his trousers up.  “Rory is also experiencing whatever is the opposite of psychic bleed, and can feel your horror,” he gestured to Jack in annoyance before turning to the Doctor, “and your pity.”

Moving with surprising speed, the Doctor pinned Rory to the door with his body, pressing his hips and chest against Rory’s.  He took Rory’s face in his hands and his eyes burned as he forced Rory to meet his gaze.  “This is not pity, Ren.  It is sorrow.  Because I know you have loved as you always have, with both hearts wide open.  And I know you have lost.  And I know you have barely begun to grieve.”  He hung his head.  “And I know that you were captured and tortured, because of me.”

Rory shook his head.  “You were just the excuse, Theta.”  When the Doctor scoffed, Rory insisted.  “I’m not just saying that.”  He pressed his forehead to the Doctor’s, eliciting a gasp of surprise at Rory’s ability to show him that he was telling the truth.  “He just wanted a question to ask.  If I broke, he’d have you, but not because he wanted _you_ , but because he wanted to hurt me, and you would have been another means of doing so.  And if I didn’t break, he’d get to keep hurting me until I did.”

The Doctor leaned away, breaking the connection.  “How do you know how to do that?”

“The opposite of psychic bleed,” Jack said, almost to himself, frowning as he remembered with loathing his days as a torturer.  “Extreme emotional and physical duress can open up dormant psychic pathways.  Rory was already showing signs of more than touch telepathy.  If they…” he hesitated, feeling ill at the level of pain and distress Rory would have had to experience, for this to happen.  “If they hurt him badly enough… it could have triggered this.  He could have easily read his captors.”  He watched as Rory slid down to the floor, looking despondent.  Jack turned to the Doctor.  “Is this permanent?”  None of Jack’s victims had ever lived long enough for him to know the answer.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor knelt down by Rory.  “Is it all the time?”

Rory shook his head.  “I can usually tune it out.  But if it’s loud, like someone shouting, I can’t ignore it.”

“When did you first notice it?”

“When I woke up, the first time after the others had been brought to the Raft.”

“The Raft?” Jack’s eyes widened.  He was about to ask more questions, but the Doctor’s cautioning hand forestalled him.

Rory nodded before continuing.  “Clint and Sam and someone named Scott were in the cells directly across.  I felt their anger, their rage, and their contempt for Tony when he came to visit.  I felt Tony’s horror.  I felt Wanda’s despair, and her terror every time I started screaming.  I felt Ross’ _arousal_ every time he made me scream, and God help me, I couldn’t not scream, after they’d had at me for long enough.”

He pulled into himself, then.  “You said I didn’t have to talk about it, yet.”

“So I did,” the Doctor smiled, straddling Rory’s legs and kissing his neck.  He pulled Rory into an embrace and whispered, “But when we do talk about it, we will help you.  Never doubt that you will recover, Ren, because you are strong.  Your love is stronger than his hate, and that is why you will always win.  That is why you will always be completely and utterly extraordinary.”

He felt Rory holding on to him, trembling.  He summoned all of his love and respect and fondness and poured it all towards his beloved.  Jack sensed what he was doing and followed suit.  The Doctor looked at Jack and raised an eyebrow, and the tenor of the emotions they were sending shifted. 

Love. 

Desire. 

Lust.

Rory drew in a breath as he felt their combined arousal overtake him.  “Right,” he growled, shifting the Doctor off of him.  They all stood, and Rory looked at Jack.  “You.  Too many clothes,” he muttered, and then picked Jack up in a fireman’s carry and headed to their room.

“Umm… Rory?” Jack chuckled as the Doctor reached out and snatched off Rory’s towel.  Jack quietened as he took in the view of Rory’s fine arse as he carried him quickly and easily into their quarters. 

With very little effort, Rory shifted his hands, lifted Jack clear of his shoulders, and _threw_ him onto the bed.  Jack was laughing as he landed.  “Shit, Rory.”  His eyes darkened as he looked at Rory, who was not the least bit winded from his efforts.  “You’re certainly fit,” he said, his voice thickened by a sudden wave of lust.

Rory shrugged and began taking off Jack’s shoes and socks.  “I’m the only one strong enough to give Steve a good spar, when Thor’s not around.”

Jack stared.  So did the Doctor.  “Wait.  What?” the latter asked.

“Rory,” Jack asked, his voice part wonder, part amusement, “are you saying that you’re an Avenger?”

Rory scoffed.  “No, I am not saying that.”

“No, he only lives, trains and fights with them, that’s all,” the Doctor snarked good-naturedly.

“Nope, after the Incident, Meg said no more fighting,” Rory mumbled, now focused on the fly of Jack’s trousers.  In no time they were being tossed aside, as well, and Rory unbuttoned the cuffs of Jack’s shirt before pulling it and his vest over his head rather than bothering with any more buttons.  Both men groaned loudly at the sensation of skin sliding against skin.

What followed was a veritable marathon that lasted several days.  Jack and the Doctor snatched rest when they could, Rory watching over them until he could no longer resist the hunger that drew him to them, again and again. 

He was resisting sleep at all costs, which the other two readily recognized, but eventually exhaustion claimed him, and he fell into a deep sleep.  Jack and the Doctor collapsed gratefully into their own rest.

***

Rory’s screams wrenched the Doctor and Jack from their sleep.  In the throes of a nightmare, he could not be calmed.  The Doctor trapped his right arm to the side of his head.  Too late he realized their error as Jack caught Rory’s left arm and tried to restrain him.

“Jack, don’t…”

Rory somehow got his arm under Jack and hurled him over himself, the Doctor, and into the wall to the right of the bed.  Jack crashed into it with a pained shout and crumpled to the floor as the Doctor held Rory’s hand and tried to wake him.

“Are you all right?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Fine,” Jack ground out, popping his dislocated shoulder back into place.  He felt it begin to heal almost immediately.  He shook off the pain and strode back to the bed, concerned.

“I can’t wake him,” the Doctor said, a frantic note to his voice.

Jack grabbed a glass of water from the bedside table and threw it into Rory’s face, almost instantly regretting the choice as Rory gasped awake and began intoning, “Renatus Lupus Petran.  Secundas-Pilus-Prior.  Legio Flavia Felix.”

He stared straight ahead, his eyes unseeing, his voice flat, quietly repeating his name, rank and legion over and over again, as though it were a mantra.

“Shit,” Jack said.  “I…” he looked horrified.  “That’s how they would have brought him around for another bout of questioning.”

As no blows came, Rory’s voice got quieter and quieter.  Soon he stopped speaking altogether, his eyes half-lidded and blank.

“Well, now we know how he managed not to break,” Jack sighed.

“How do you know they didn’t break him?” the Doctor didn’t take his eyes off of Rory.  He had out his sonic screwdriver, scanning Rory and looking at the results.

“He said that if he broke, they’d have you, and if he didn’t, they’d keep hurting him until he did.  Since they didn’t show up for you today, I think we can assume…”

The Doctor nodded, agreeing with Jack’s deduction.  “Shall we see where he’s gone?  Where he hid to keep himself safe from their tortures?”  He looked reluctant, but both he and Jack knew it would likely yield useful information.

Jack nodded.

The Doctor held out his hand and clasped Jack’s as he pressed his forehead to Rory’s.  They found themselves in a well-appointed apartment, overlooking the city.  New York, by the looks of it, Jack thought.  There was a sofa along the wall by the bedroom door that had a pillow on top of a folded blanket set out.

Somewhere, a clock chimed midnight as Rory entered the room in a pair of navy pajama bottoms.  His body showed only the scar from the Weevil bite, and no others. 

He was beautiful. 

He approached a hospital bed with a tea tray.  “One midnight cup of tea for milady,” he smiled.

“It’s Peg,” Jack murmured. 

In the bed, sitting up and looking alert, was Peggy Carter, who accepted a dainty teacup from her husband with an endearment and a smile.  She looked over Rory’s shoulder, and when he turned, she dropped something into the cup.  By the time he turned back, she was stirring her tea.

“Oh, no,” the Doctor sighed.

When she finished her tea, she set down her cup and Rory just seemed to _know_. 

“You promised,” he said, tearfully.

They seemed to fall into an old debate.  She was calm and sure, he was angry and grief-stricken.  But it was done, and clearly not to be undone, and the Doctor and Jack watched as Rory set aside his own feelings before picking her up and carrying her to the chair in the corner, where they talked for hours.

They left nothing unsaid.

“I can’t say it wasn’t a struggle, at times,” she said, caressing his cheek, “that you never aged.  But I would not trade a single struggle for anything in the world.  To be loved by you, Rory Williams, is the greatest gift.  I have been so…” she seemed to be fading, at this point.  “…so very blessed,” she smiled, closing her eyes.

Rory carried her back to bed and lay down beside her.  “I can honestly say that I have no regrets,” she smiled again as Rory tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.  “Do you have any idea how singular that is?”  She sighed.  “We’ve had a good life together, haven’t we?” she smiled sleepily at him.

“It’s been a wonderful life, my Sweet,” Rory returned her smile, sadly.

When she asked, Rory sang to her.  He kept singing, long after she was gone.  When he finally stopped, he retrieved the leech and set about packing all of their photos, some of his clothing, all of his textbooks and notebooks, his laptop, and certain odds and ends.  He spent a good deal of time at the bookshelf, pulling down old favorites of his and Peggy’s. 

He slipped her wedding ring from her finger and added it to the cord around his neck.  He pulled her engagement ring out of her jewellery box, along with the matching earrings, pendant, and bracelet that he had gifted to her, through the years.  He found a smaller jewellery box and put these pieces, along with several others, into it.

They stayed with him as the memory continued to unfold.  The flight to the Avengers facility.  The confrontation with Ross.  The comfort of his friends.  Back to the city, to meet with the undertaker.  Planning with Natasha when she came to Stark Tower, later in the day.

As they finished, Rory reached for her hand.  “One more thing, Nat,” he said quietly, and she settled back into her chair.  “Meg wanted you to have her sapphires,” he said, handing her the box.  “And the ruby earrings for Laura, the emerald ones for Pepper, and the pearls for Maria.  And… she had some garnet earrings that I thought Wanda might like.”

“Rory,” she said, her eyes glittering.  “Are you sure?”

“It’s what she wanted,” he said.  “She didn’t know Wanda, but the garnets were the only things left of any value.  I have no use for anything, other than her wedding band.  At some point, will you and the others go through her jewellery box, and take what you like?  You can sell anything you don’t want.  Give it to charity, or something,” he mumbled.  “The same with everything else.  Maybe Pepper would be willing to help clear out, since I probably won’t be around?”

Natasha nodded, unable to speak. 

The memory continued to unfold, and they saw Rory in London, being surprisingly cagey.  Using rather sophisticated spycraft, he executed his plans, and did not appear the least surprised when Ross’ men set upon him.

The Doctor pulled Jack out of the memory, not wishing Rory’s means of escape to loop back into his traumatic time at the Raft.  He gently extricated Rory from the memory as well, coaxing him out of the trance he had put himself in.

***


	4. Immersion Therapy

Rory blinked.  “What?”  He was used to being violently pulled out of those memories by the adrenaline.  He looked from the Doctor to Jack.  “What happened?”

“You had a nightmare,” the Doctor said gently.  “We…” he hesitated.  “We saw the memories you used as an escape.  I am sorry for the invasion.”

Rory sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to shake off the grief and panic that warred with one another for supremacy.  “One less thing for me to have to explain,” he muttered.  “Pretty fucked up to escape from a traumatic experience into a traumatic memory, yeah?”

“The circumstances may have been traumatic, but the conversation and the love expressed were quite beautiful,” the Doctor replied.  “It makes perfect sense, Rory.”

“And it had to be a powerful memory, for you to be able to successfully dissociate,” Jack added.  “You’re not sleeping, are you, Rory?”

Rory shook his head.  “Shuri’s been giving me vibranium extract, but the most sleep I get any given night is maybe a couple of hours.”

“You can do without sleep for a while, but you can’t keep going like this, Rory,” the Doctor said.

“I know,” Rory scrubbed his hands over his face again.  “I’m exhausted.  And…  Did I hurt you, Jack?” 

Jack grinned.  “I’m fine, no worries there.  But at some point we should talk about how strong you’ve gotten.”  He sobered and hesitated, before speaking.  “When the Master held me prisoner, I spent the whole time chained,” he spread his arms to demonstrate, and Rory’s shudder confirmed his same experience.  “But there was something that Ianto did for me…” he hesitated again as Rory and the Doctor looked at him, curious.  “It helped.  With the nightmares.  And the PTSD.  Might even help with what’s left of the sublimation, too.”

Jack stopped speaking, and Rory looked at him.  “Well?”

“It would require an extraordinary level of trust on your part, because you’d have to let us into your mind.”

“Well, that hardly seems to be a problem,” Rory snarked.

Jack looked from the Doctor, who seemed to understand where he was going with this, to Rory.  “That may be a little more difficult for you to allow, because of the other part of it.”

“What other part?” Rory asked, frowning.

“You’d be tied up.”

Rory blanched.  He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he could not control the color draining from his face.   “Oh,” he said, his voice quiet.

“That’s pretty much all there is to it.  I think Ianto did it to make new memories for me, and I can’t explain how or why, but it did help.”

“He had telepathic abilities?” the Doctor asked.

Jack nodded. “He had more natural ability than me,” he said.

The Doctor’s eyebrows went up as he nodded.  “Impressive.”

Jack nodded again, then looked at Rory.  “You up for this?”

Rory knew how and why it would help.  After all, it had helped Meg, after Vostov.  He knew it could help.  But he knew it would be agony.  He sighed, then nodded.

“Don’t look so glum,” Jack smiled wickedly before leaning in for a kiss.  “If I do this right, being tied up will be the last thing on your mind, well before we’re done.”

Rory chuckled and allowed Jack and the Doctor to maneuver him so he was sitting up in the middle of the bed.  Jack stripped the top sheet and duvet away, while the Doctor piled up pillows against the middle of the headboard and sat against them.  Rory sat between the Doctor’s legs, leaning back against his chest. 

For several minutes, they just sat there, the Doctor whispering in Rory’s ear and kissing his neck, stroking his arms soothingly as Jack collected the things they would need.  Jack knelt before them, smiling.  “We’re going to need a safe word, Loop, and I need you to promise me you’ll use it, if it becomes too much.”

“Loop?” the Doctor asked, chuckling.

Rory groaned.  “I thought you’d forgotten that,” he grumbled.  He tried to frown, but it had never been a secret that he had enjoyed the nickname.

“From when we first met,” Jack chuckled.  “Gave me the full spiel, trying to scare me off.  ‘Renatus Lupus Petran, the Last Centurion, Guardian of the Pandorica.  Don’t fuck with me or I’ll stab you with my very impressive… sword.’” 

Jack’s centurion impression wasn’t half bad, until that last bit.

“There was absolutely none of that innuendo, the first time we met,” Rory chided as the Doctor chuckled.  “But he immediately took the piss and zeroed in on Lupus.  Started calling me Loop, or Loopy, instead.”

The conversation had done what Jack had intended.  Rory had relaxed, a bit.  Jack smiled.  “And that safe word?”

“Well, as long as you’re admiring my _very_ impressive sword, how about gladius?”

The Doctor chuckled and Jack grinned, leaning forward.  He let the back of his hand graze against Rory’s half-hard cock as he leaned in for a kiss.  The Doctor caught Rory’s ear between his teeth before sweeping his tongue along the soft skin behind it.  As Rory let out a purr, Jack sat back.  “Remember, we can stop any time you need to.”

Rory nodded as Jack took his right hand and looped one of Amy’s silk scarves around his wrist before securing it to the headboard.  Rory tested how secure it was and his breath hitched as he realized that the knots would likely hold, no matter how hard he might struggle.

“Shhh,” the Doctor whispered as Rory tensed in his arms.  “You’re all right.  You’re safe.  We have you.”  He pressed his forehead to Rory’s temple and poured in love and safety and ease. 

With some effort, Rory calmed.  He looked at Jack, who had settled in front of him, once more.  “All right?” Jack asked.  At Rory’s nod, Jack leaned in for another kiss.  He joined the Doctor in telepathically sending a great deal of loving energy to Rory.  The whole point was to make Rory feel safe, so they would take all the time they needed, before proceeding.

When it was clear that Rory was holding his calm, Jack took his left hand and secured it with another scarf.  For the first few moments, Rory was fine.  But as he shifted against the restraints, his breathing began to speed up, coming in gasps.  He looked at Jack, then closed his eyes, trying to regulate his breathing.

“We have you, Ren,” the Doctor whispered in his ear.  He and Jack both focused on sending calm, protective thoughts to Rory, helping him to feel safe and grounded and secure.

As the Doctor continued with the litany of love and well-being, Jack began kissing Rory again.  Light, teasing kisses that began to awaken the hormones still trying to rebalance.  Soon Rory was leaning forward, chasing Jack’s lips, trying to deepen the kisses. 

Jack pushed Rory back against the Doctor.  “Patience, Love,” he smiled.  He leaned back and held up one of the Doctor’s bowties, his smile morphing into a wolfish grin.  “Did you think I’d stop with your hands?”

The Doctor chuckled, but he could not tell whether the tremor running through Rory’s body was fear or anticipation.  Understanding that he was to be Rory’s anchor, he sent more loving thoughts.

Jack leaned in and kissed Rory, deep and dirty.  When he backed up, he trailed the tie over Rory’s shoulder, down his belly, down to his thighs, then back up again.  With swift, sure movements, he tied off Rory’s cock and balls, making a rather fetching bow that could be easily released, later.

“Jack,” Rory gasped.  “That’s a bit snug.”

Jack kissed him again, giving the makeshift cock ring a tug.  “It’s meant to be snug.”

The Doctor chuckled again as Rory groaned and leaned back against him.  Jack hooked each of Rory’s legs over the Doctor’s thighs, leaving him spread wide open in a completely decadent posture.  Feeling exposed and vulnerable, Rory grew tense again, and the Doctor reassured him, kissing his neck and whispering words that were somehow both soothing and suggestive.

Jack commenced to exploring Rory’s body, kissing, biting and licking almost everywhere, slowly building Rory’s arousal.  Kissing his way up Rory’s thigh, Jack finally gave his cock a long, wet lick, causing Rory’s hips to buck.  Jack chuckled and held Rory’s hips before delicately lapping at the tip.

Rory strained against the scarves and almost panicked, but the Doctor calmed him, smoothing his hands up and down Rory’s sides and chest.  Rory turned his head and kissed the Doctor, hard, moaning when Jack released his cock and sat back again.

“Jack,” Rory groaned.  He was breathing hard, dangerously close to hyperventilating as his body and mind warred over the proper reaction to the situation.  His body needed Jack, but his mind was still rebelling against the restraints. 

Jack crawled up Rory’s body, sliding his chest along Rory’s and pressing him further against the Doctor, whose enjoyment of the proceedings was well obvious.  Leaning their heads against each of Rory’s temples, they helped him to calm.

Just as Rory’s breathing evened out, Jack claimed his mouth in a searing kiss as the Doctor licked a long stripe from Rory’s shoulder to his ear.  Breaking contact to allow Rory a breath, Jack moved to kiss the Doctor as well, causing a rumble of desire to shudder through Rory’s chest.

“If you’re going to do that, you could at least let me watch,” Rory growled, straining once more against the scarves and fighting down another wave of panic.  Jack and the Doctor could make him forget them for moments at a time, but he could not stop the sharp stab of fear each time he felt the restraints biting into his wrists.

“Shhh,” Jack soothed as Rory felt another wave of protection wash over him from the Doctor’s mind.  “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty to watch.”

Jack leaned away, settling on his knees between Rory’s legs with a bottle of lube.  Coating his fingers, he proceeded to reach around and prepare himself, making both men watching groan.  What would have been lewd if anyone else were doing it was suddenly the most erotic thing the Doctor or Rory had seen.

Rory strained against the scarves again, and the Doctor, though his eyes were glazed with desire, sent more loving energy to calm Rory’s nerves.

Once Jack felt prepared, he leaned over Rory and gave his cock a lick, from root to tip.  Rory hissed and strained again, but calmed with the Doctor’s help.  Next Jack poured lube all over Rory, eliciting another groan as Jack kissed Rory and then the Doctor again.

Jack straddled both men’s hips and slowly lowered himself onto Rory’s cock, moaning wickedly at the feeling of being filled so perfectly.  He angled his hips just so, and suddenly Rory’s cock was hammering his prostate.  “Fuck!” he shouted, setting a fast pace as Rory let out a string of Latin epithets that would have made a harlot blush.

The Doctor was hot and hard and Jack’s movements had Rory’s back creating just the right kind of friction against his cock.  It was all he could do to keep his head, though he knew neither he nor Jack would last very long, at this pace.  He felt Rory buck against the restraints again and sent a wave of safety and security to him.  All laced heavily with enough lust that Rory let out a desperate moan.  “Jack, please!”

“So good,” Jack sped up, pumping his cock and angling his hips so that with every downward thrust he was hitting his own sweet spot.  “So fucking good.”  With just three more strokes, he came hard, cursing and pelting Rory’s chest with hot, ropy jets of pearly white come.

Rory moaned at the sensation of Jack’s muscles clamping around him as the immortal orgasmed.  The hot burst of come on his chest was compounded by the fountain of heat he felt as the Doctor gave a deep groan and came against his back.  He pulled against the scarves, hard.

The panic that suddenly rose was not sufficient to dampen his raging arousal, but it did make it difficult to catch his breath.  He was trying to remember his safe word when his mind was flooded with comfort and love and… bliss.

“Please, Jack.  Untie it,” he entreated, even as Jack raised himself off of Rory’s cock with shaking legs.

“Christ, Rory.  You’re beautiful,” Jack murmured, leaning into Rory’s chest and kissing him hard.  He was careful not to touch Rory’s inflamed cock, wanting his lover to calm, just a bit before what would come next.  He dipped his head and licked some of the come from Rory’s chest before kissing Rory deeply, making the latter moan as he sucked it off of Jack’s tongue.

The Doctor reached down and dipped his fingers into his own come and, as Jack began kissing his way down Rory’s chest, the Doctor grabbed Rory by the chin and turned his head, kissing him hard.  He pressed his fingers into Rory’s mouth, and the latter moaned again as he sucked the juices from his lover’s fingers.  The Doctor’s cock twitched in response to the sight, sound and sensation before him.

Jack began kissing and biting his way along Rory’s thigh, and the Doctor pulled his knees up slightly, opening Rory up for Jack.  It was difficult to ignore Rory’s red, inflamed cock and balls, so he gave the latter a small nuzzle before sucking along his perineum. 

Rory’s entire body bucked against everything holding him, and he gave a strangled scream and began panting.  The Doctor reached up and pressed his forehead against Rory’s temple offering comfort and security and safety and love as Jack crawled up his body to do the same.  With both lovers pouring in psychic reassurance, Rory’s breathing evened out and his body began to relax. 

His erection had abated a bit, though the bowtie was keeping that head in the game, so to speak, even as Rory’s mind was calmed.  Jack kissed him thoroughly before making his way back down between Rory’s legs.  The Doctor smoothed his hands over Rory’s body, feeling him tremble with each new kiss.

This time Rory let out a low moan of pleasure as Jack tongued his way back to his opening.  “Jack,” he rasped as the flat of Jack’s tongue passed over him. 

Jack varied pressure and technique, keeping Rory off balance and needy.  He had teased for several minutes before plunging his tongue deep inside, causing Rory to give a shout of pleasure and desperate need.

It felt as though the Doctor had grown an extra set of hands.  Rory felt the Doctor touching him everywhere, it seemed, as he kissed and bit Rory’s neck and shoulders, and paid particular attention to his ears.  The Doctor heard a growl from Rory as he licked a path up behind one of his ears.  There was a particular spot that, when paid sufficient attention, could make Rory come without being touched. 

The Doctor now studiously avoided that spot, much to Rory’s growing frustration.  “Gods, please,” Rory begged, not really coherent enough to know just what he was begging for, at this point.  His mind was finally emptying, the blinding need driving away all else.

He felt Jack’s tongue plunge into his body, joined by a finger, and he rocked against both.  He arched against the Doctor’s teasing attentions, twisting his head around to catch the Doctor in a blistering kiss that had the Doctor grinding his reasserted arousal against Rory’s back.  Jack pressed another finger into Rory, scissoring the two as the tongue continued to torment.

“Jack, please, I need you,” Rory cried out, pulling against the restraints again and cursing.  The Doctor smiled, realizing that Rory was no longer panicking.  He bit Rory, hard, on the shoulder, causing the latter to buck his hips.  Rory twisted his head and kissed the Doctor.  “Do that again,” he growled.

The Doctor bit Rory on the back of the neck.  Rory moaned in pleasure, but the sound became piteous as Jack withdrew his fingers and tongue.  Jack leaned against Rory again, pressing him once more tightly against the Doctor.  He reached out and gave the Doctor a scorching kiss before kissing Rory.

“Are you ready for what’s next, Rory?” Jack asked, his voice rough.

“Please yes, Jack,” Rory’s eyes were blown wide and he was leaning forward, straining against the scarves, desperately seeking Jack’s mouth again.  “I need you.”

Jack poured lube all over his hand, then leaned forward, kissing Rory as he reached around him, spreading lube all over Rory’s back and giving the Doctor’s cock several long, hard pulls.  All three men moaned.  Jack poured a bit more lube onto his hand and slicked up his own swollen cock, throwing his head back and cursing.  “Fuck, Rory.  I think this is going to feel even better than riding your cock did.”

He kissed Rory again and then leaned back and pressed the head of his cock against Rory’s hole.  He teased the opening, only breaching Rory enough to press the head in. 

“Jack.  Yes, please.  More, Jack.”

Jack grinned up at Rory, who was still straining against the scarves, all fear now past.  “You want more, Rory?”

“I want it all,” Rory growled with an intensity that had Jack grabbing his hips and thrusting into him in one swift, harsh movement.  Rory gave a howl of what could have been pleasure or pain (or possibly both) as Jack watched his face for any sign that he should stop.

When none came, but well before Rory could adjust to the penetration, Jack began fucking him, hard.  “Going to.  Make you.  Come.  So.  Fucking.  Hard,” Jack punctuated each word with a brutal thrust.

“Fuck!  Yes.  Jack.  More.  More.  Need.  More.” Rory chanted as Jack slammed into him, Rory’s voice making him lose all sense of control as he just needed to claim the beautiful man bound beneath him.

The Doctor was whispering pure filth into Rory’s ear, as he bucked against Rory’s back, one arm firmly around Rory’s waist while the other hand snaked up and wrapped itself around Rory’s throat.

Jack would not have thought it possible for Rory’s eyes to go any darker, but when the Doctor took Rory by the throat, practically nothing could be seen but the black of Rory’s pupils.  Jack felt the familiar spark running down his spine, and he saw the Doctor’s breath begin to hitch, as well. 

Keeping the punishing rhythm, Jack continued to pound into Rory’s body even as he reached down and gave the bowtie a tug.  He and the Doctor both took Rory’s newly freed cock in hand and after maybe a stroke and a half, Rory was bowing off of the bed, shouting something completely unintelligible as he came so hard his vision failed.

The Doctor gritted, “Yes, yes,” as he came all over Rory’s back again. 

Jack had to hold onto Rory’s hips to keep from slipping out as Rory almost bucked out of the Doctor’s arms.  He fucked into Rory a few more times before Rory’s shuddering body ripped his orgasm from him.  “Christ.  Fuck.  Rory!”

Rory’s body shuddered as pleasure continued to blast through him.  The pain of renewed blood flow as the bowtie was removed was utterly eclipsed by wave after glorious wave of pure bliss, made more intense by the delayed release.  Rory didn’t see stars; he saw entire galaxies pass before his eyes as he slumped against the spent Doctor, the dead weight of an equally worn-out Jack collapsed against him.

Rory’s mindscape was a blank canvas.  For the first time since the Raft, there was no pain and torment.  The background noise of his own screams that had been like static, constantly there beneath his grief and plans to reunite with his family.  Now, there was only peace.  And the most beautiful song he had ever heard. 

The TARDIS was singing to him, providing a new background from which to rebuild.  And flooding into this new place of peace was a sense of safety, a renewed confidence in his own strength, and a certainty that he was loved and cherished. 

Rory now realized that this had been their endgame.  Jack and the Doctor had completely dismantled him so they could bring him to this place, to build him back up.  Love and gratitude filled his heart, and was sent flooding back to his beloveds.

“He’s gotten so strong,” the Doctor muttered, rubbing his chest.  His hearts ached with the love Rory had just inundated him with.  “Just intuitively knows what to do.”

Jack murmured in agreement as he sat up and brushed his lips against Rory’s sweat-drenched forehead.  “You all right?” he whispered as Rory’s eyes opened blearily. 

Rory gave an almost imperceptible nod as Jack reached over and released his right wrist.  He rubbed Rory’s shoulder and chaffed the bruised wrist for several minutes before untying his left wrist and giving that arm and wrist the same treatment. 

The Doctor helped Jack half-walk, half-carry Rory to the bathing chamber.  He was amused to note that it was the garden bath with the view of the Fire Nebula or Zelnor.  It seemed that this was the TARDIS’ favorite bathing chamber for her Pretty when he had been loved to the point of incoherence.

Each man held Rory as the other bathed, and then they turned their attentions to him.  They washed him carefully and treated him gently, knowing he would be extremely sore – in more ways than one – from their adventure.  Rory was barely awake, but the Doctor checked in several times to be sure he was all right.  After they lovingly dried him off, they returned to the bedroom to find the bed decked out in fresh linens.

“Thank you, Gorgeous,” Jack gave a tired smile. 

They guided Rory into bed and nestled in together.  The Doctor became the little spoon as Rory pulled him in close.  Jack wrapped himself around Rory’s back, feeling him finally – _finally_ – truly relax.

 _Te amo_ was whispered in their minds as they drifted off into a deep, blessedly dreamless sleep.

***

Due to his exhaustion and exertions, Rory slept for almost forty hours, before waking.  Jack and the Doctor slept a long while, as well.  As they began to stir, Rory reflexively pulled them closer.  His whispered, “Please don’t leave me,” kept them holding him close, watching him sleep before they drifted off once more, as well.  When they woke again, they were reluctant to leave Rory alone, so they stayed with him and watched over him as he continued to sleep. 

When he finally woke, Rory was exceptionally sore.  The Doctor had already scanned him to ensure they had done him no damage.  They brought him tea and fed him as he bathed – he found it easier to eat while clinging to the side of the pool than trying to sit.  Then the Doctor found a lovely plant extract for sore muscles, and he and Jack gave Rory a lengthy, thorough, and incredibly soothing massage.

They slept again, and when they woke, Rory was fairly well recovered, though he was still sore, and the bruises from the scarves and the Doctor’s bites were still livid.  They bathed, ate and dressed, ready to return to New York to pick up Amy and River.

***


	5. Farewells

A quarter hour after the TARDIS left, it returned.  As Rory stepped out of the TARDIS, Amy ran and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and making her best attempt at snogging his face off.  Most assembled could not help but notice the dark bruises on his wrists as he wrapped his arms around her and returned her kiss.

Amy pulled back and looked at him for a moment.  She was relieved to see that the tension of the unresolved reaction to the sublimation was gone.  He looked like he had actually slept.  And some of the shadows had eased.  “How long?” she asked as Rory buried his face in her neck, breathing deeply.

“Another eight days,” the Doctor answered, “but he spent the last two sleeping, finally.”

“Wore him out, did you?” she grinned at the Doctor and Jack over Rory’s shoulder.

“One does what one can,” Jack returned her grin, but then a look passed between them, an assurance and understanding that Rory was going to recover from whatever had happened.

River stepped into the Doctor’s embrace.  “Something will have to be done about Ross,” she said, her voice holding that hard resolve that told him she would be addressing the issue, whether he planned to help, or not.

“Yes,” he muttered, surprising her.  “But not yet.”

Tony could contain himself no longer.  “What happened to your wrists there, Gramps?” he smirked.  He never would have guessed that Rory had a kinky side.  Then again, he’d had trouble envisioning the devoted husband of Peggy Carter being in a polyamorous quad, too, until he saw it.  It seemed as natural as breathing, though, the way the four seemed to just fit.

“Immersion therapy,” Rory said, lifting his head from Amy’s shoulder.  She leaned back and looked at him, then slid suggestively down to stand by him.  She did not fail to notice the slight wince, and she wondered just how far Jack and the Doctor had gone.  She blinked but otherwise refrained from reacting when she looked at his bruises.

Tony snapped his mouth shut, a vision of Rory chained to a wall by manacles on his wrists slamming through his memory.  _Damn_.

“Did it work?” Shuri asked, ever the scientist.  T’Challa shook his head, muttering something about sisters as Okoye chuckled.

Rory gave her a small smile.  “Well, I finally, properly slept, so here’s hoping.”

Just then, a van drove up along one of the lanes that wound its way among the tombstones.  Clint and Natasha took aim, only to lower their weapons as Happy got out of the van.  The man gave a wave, opened the back of the van, and began toting something their way.

“Tony, I think Happy’s finally lost it,” Clint said.

“Consider it a peace offering,” Tony said, turning to Rory.  He looked at his feet for a few moments before saying, “I’m sorry I didn’t get you out of there, Gramps.”

Rory reached out and grasped Tony’s shoulder.  “You told Steve I was there.  I thank you for that.”  He looked to see what it was Happy was carrying their way.  “Is that…” his face took on a soft, fond, sad expression.  “Thank you, Tony,” he said as Happy set down his and Peggy’s wing chair before him.  He gave an emotional chuckle.  “You know that chair was in your dad’s apartment, and he gave it to Meg as a wedding gift, when she told him she wanted to buy it from him.”

“When I was a kid, I was visiting you guys, and I started jumping on it.  Aunt Peggy told me to please stop, that it was your magic chair.  That every night you’d sit in the chair, and she’d sit on your knee, and you’d talk about your day.”  Tony shook himself from the memory and added, “That sounded like the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.  Of course, I couldn’t _say_ that, because then I wouldn’t get a cookie.”

Rory laughed, but there was a watery quality to it.  “Doctor, do you mind?”

“Not at all,” the Doctor smiled.  He remembered the chair from Rory’s dream. 

Jack came over and grabbed the chair.  “I’m sure she’ll show me where it will best go,” he said, heading back to the TARDIS, where River had opened both doors.

“You used the countermeasures, right?” Tony turned to Happy.

“Pepper said you’d called and said they weren’t necessary,” Happy looked confused, then his eyes widened.  “How would anyone know…”

“They took a chance when they saw Vision and me heading out together for the first time since…  Shit!” Tony stepped back into his armor.  “We may have incoming.”

The others all began looking around warily.  Rory turned to Tony.  “You and Vision, get out of here.  We can take everyone else, but you shouldn’t be seen, with us.”  Then he turned to T’Challa.  “You should go, too, or remote the fighter home and come with us.”

“Are you kidding?” Shuri drew a bauble from her bracelet and the royal talon fighter took off.  “No way I am passing up a chance to ride in the TARDIS,” she grinned.

“It’s probably best that you aren’t seen,” Rory said, escorting them towards the door of the TARDIS.  He stopped Shuri for a moment, reaching into his messenger bag that she had slung over her shoulder and pulling out the leather wristband that Tony had given him.  As he put it on, he felt uneasy, but not the panic he would have expected.  He actually felt… normal.  Steady.

He looked around.  “Amy, get in the TARDIS.  You too, Clint.  They don’t need to know you’ve left the farm.  Tony, Vision, if you’re not going to leave then you need to get out of sight.  Ross can cause trouble – if not for you, then for Pepper.  Happy, thank you for the chair, but you should head out.  If you get stopped, just tell them you came to put flowers on your grandmother’s grave, or something.”  He reached out and shook Happy’s hand.  Happy spared a look for Tony, then headed to the van.

Just as Clint, Tony and Vision followed Amy into the TARDIS, a quinjet swooped into the clearing where the royal talon fighter had been.  It hovered for several seconds as a dozen commandos rappelled to the ground. 

A canon-like _boom_ came from behind one of the larger mausoleums, and the quinjet’s engines cut out.  The thing dropped like a brick, barely missing the men who had just rappelled from it.  Those inside were unlikely to have been harmed, but it couldn’t have felt good.  And the quinjet was done.

The commandos began shooting.  Everyone had gathered in close enough to the TARDIS that the extrapolator was providing them cover.  Rory shook his head at Natasha.  He and Wanda stepped forward.  Wanda used her magic, and Rory used his repulsor weapon on a non-lethal setting.  Together, they took down the handful of mercenaries. 

“Nice shooting,” came a familiar drawl as Nick Fury stepped from behind the mausoleum carrying an EMP cannon, followed by Maria Hill and…

“Phil?” Rory blinked.  He stepped out and wrapped his friend in a bear hug.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, looking from Rory to the others.  “At first I was getting my bearings, and then the more time that passed, the more impossible it seemed to tell everyone.”

“Don’t care,” Rory hugged him again.  “Idiot,” he said, putting Coulson back on his feet so he could greet the rest of his friends.  Clint and Tony had come out of the TARDIS to see him.  They were all too glad to see him to be angry.  They knew how Fury worked, and how tough it would have been for Phil to come in out of the cold.

“So what happened?” Steve asked.

“Guess the director couldn’t live without me,” Coulson quipped.

Rory felt a chill run down his spine.  What was it with the directors of shadowy organizations who wore dramatic outerwear and brought their people back from the dead?

“What about these idiots?” Natasha asked, interrupting his train of thought.

“I have just the thing,” Jack grinned, pulling a bottle of pills out of his pocket.  At everyone’s questioning looks, he added, “Retcon.  Don’t leave home without it.”

“Is it enough?” the Doctor asked.

“You wound me,” Jack grinned.  River, Natasha and Wanda followed him.  Wanda used her magic to gather the commandos and push them back into the quinjet, where she and Natasha administered the Retcon to the mercenaries and the flight crew, according to Jack’s instructions.  He and River quickly programmed the quinjet’s history to show a malfunction causing the electrical system failure that led to the crash.

“They won’t remember seeing the TARDIS,” Jack assured the Doctor when they returned. 

“We should go,” the Doctor said.  “Come along.  Places to go.”

Rory caught the Doctor’s hand.  “Can you give me a minute?”

The Doctor frowned, then nodded.  Rory ran into the TARDIS, and almost directly, came back out with a handful of flowers.  He walked towards the mausoleum, and then stopped at a small monument a few rows before it.  He knelt down and tossed aside the last offering before placing the blooms from the TARDIS garden in front of the small stone.

River and Jack both had their weapons drawn, their eyes wary for another attack.  Still, they did not miss the name on the small headstone.  Amy put a hand over her mouth and buried her head in the Doctor’s shoulder.

The others craned to see.  The headstone read:

 _Brian Carter Williams  
__8 August 1960_  
Loved Without Condition  
or Reservation

“Don’t know when I’ll be back this way, but I don’t suppose it matters,” Rory smiled sadly as he brushed some dust from the top of the stone.  “You’re always with me, yeah?”  He gave a sniff and a nod, and then he said, “Goodbye.”

As he stood, the others felt something pushing at them.  The Doctor took Amy’s arm and led her away.  Likewise, Jack and River stepped away, still vigilant, but giving Rory the space he was asking for.

“What was that?” Amy whispered as she and the Doctor joined River.

“That was Rory, asking for a moment to collect himself,” the Doctor answered.

River’s eyebrows shot up.  “He’s getting strong.”

“We’ve noticed,” the Doctor replied. 

Once Rory had calmed himself, he looked over at Jack, who was still scanning the area, looking for threats.  When Jack caught his eye, he walked over to him.  “I’m sorry, Rory.”

Rory wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist.  “Thanks.”  He blew out a breath.  “I asked the Colonel to find something here.  I had no idea it would be within sight of…”  He shook his head.  “Life is strange, sometimes, yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Jack put a hand on the back of Rory’s head and kissed his temple.

Once everyone was in the TARDIS, the Doctor looked around.  “Everyone ready?” he asked.

Shuri and Tony were completely enamored.  They peppered the Doctor with questions.  Clint and Natasha decided to go exploring, Sam, Wanda, Maria and Vision following.  T’Challa and Steve stood back and chatted with Fury and Phil, watching over their friends.  Okoye flirted shamelessly (but harmlessly) with Jack.  And Amy clung to Rory, understanding as the others couldn’t how keenly he’d felt the loss of another child, even after the better part of six decades.

“I thought,” she began quietly, not wanting to make it worse, but hopeful that perhaps the Doctor had been mistaken.

“Yeah.  The Doctor wasn’t wrong.  But Brian was mine, in every way except biology.”

She nodded, now understanding the epitaph. 

The Doctor dropped off Tony and Vision, first.  It was several hours later, and Happy and Pepper were pacing the living room floor as the TARDIS materialized.  They were fine, though a man claiming to be a detective had come by, asking strange questions.

“Be careful,” Rory said.  “And tell Rhodey I said hello.”  He shook Tony’s hand.  “Thank you.”

Tony pulled him into a hug.  “Keep in touch, will you?”

Rory smiled and nodded.  Fury, Maria and Phil decided to disembark at Stark Tower, as well.  “Don’t be a stranger,” Rory grinned, giving Phil another hug.

“We should start the poker game back up,” Phil smiled.

“Of course you would say that,” Rory snarked.

“Never understood,” Clint drawled.  “You’re like, this mathematical genius, and yet you _suck_ at poker.  How is that?”

Rory shrugged.  “Never paid that much attention to the cards.  I was just having fun with my friends.”  He grinned.

The Doctor managed to get to Clint’s farm on the same day.  It was the next day by the time he dropped everyone else in Wakanda. 

Rory shook T’Challa’s hand.  “I can’t thank you enough.”

“It was my pleasure,” he smiled.  “Stay in touch, White Wolf.”[1]

Rory hugged Shuri and thanked her for her help with the randomizer.  He embraced Okoye for a long while, thanking her for her friendship and support.

After farewelling with the rest, he handed Steve a card with his phone number on it.  “If you ever need anything,” he said. 

Likewise, Jack handed him his Torchwood card.  “We’re good with aliens,” he quipped.

After one last hug from Natasha, they were off.  The Doctor took them directly to Leadworth, a few hours after they had stopped for a letter for Rory from Brian.  At Rory’s knock, Brian opened the door.

Rory had the letter in his hand, yellow and crumbling from age and many, many readings.  “Thank you,” he whispered. 

“Son,” Brian exclaimed, pulling Rory into his arms as Rory burst into tears.

“I missed you, Dad,” he wept, holding his father close, trying not to use all his strength.  When they finally broke apart, Rory said, “Will you come with us?  They want me to talk,” he sighed.  “Don’t think I can do it more than once.”

“Let’s go, then,” Brian answered without hesitation, pleased that his son wanted to include him in the discussion.

***

 

[1] Sorry, couldn’t resist.


	6. A Life in Review

They settled in a soft room in the TARDIS.  There were cushions and fabrics everywhere, even the floor and walls were soft and squashy.  It was impossible not to get comfortable.  Rory pulled a photo album out of his messenger bag and began by describing how Peggy had found him in the alleyway, seconds after he arrived.

He went on to describe how Peggy had helped him, got him a job, introduced him to the colonel.  He chuckled as he described meeting the man for the first time at an all-night diner in Brooklyn.  How he was a lieutenant in the army before he’d even joined.  How he’d met a scrawny kid with a chip on his shoulder and been bowled over to realize his name was Steve Rogers. 

He glossed over missions with the SSR and the week at Camp Lehigh and being assigned to the 107th.  He mentioned being captured by Hydra and rescued by Steve and then invited to join the Howling Commandos.

“How did you stay out of all of the pictures in the history books?” River asked, genuinely curious.

“Simple.  I was the one who took them,” he smiled.  “I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be there, so I tried to stay out of the way.  There was one news reel where they caught us brainstorming.  I was pointing to places on the map, and Steve was nodding.  It looked too much like he wasn’t calling the shots, so it never saw the light of day.”  He opened the scrapbook.  “Here.  Here’s one that Meg took.  Said I’d want a picture of us all, together.”

He let his fingers slide across the picture, so many friends, long gone, now.  “She was right,” he whispered.  Jack took his hand and Rory raised his eyes to meet a gaze that understood all too well. 

“So tell us about them,” Amy said, with a bracing smile.

Rory pointed out each man and told them about them all.  The last to be shown were Steve, Bucky and Dugan.  “Steve you’ve met.  Bucky’s in cryo until they can get some malware out of his head.”

Jack leaned in close.  “Holy shit, you’re kidding me!  That’s the Winter Soldier.”

“No, that is James Buchanan Barnes, who was captured by Hydra and reprogrammed,” Rory said pointedly. 

Jack nodded, understanding far more than Rory had intended.  “Who’s that, then?”

“That’s Tim Dugan,” Rory said.

“He looks familiar,” Amy said, frowning.  Rory turned to another picture, of Tim and Angie on their wedding day.  “Wait, I think I met him!”

Rory turned to the pictures that Tim had taken of him, Amy and River, in 1969.  “You did.  But only after he’d been following you for half the summer.”

Amy looked at Rory.  River took his hand, now.  “He’s the one who gave me the money, that day we were all so tired and worn out from it all.”  She turned to Rory.  “He said that he was my father’s best friend.”

Rory smiled.  “That he was.”

“Where were you?” she asked.

“Locked up in SHIELD headquarters so I wouldn’t try to catch a glimpse of any of you.”

“They locked you up?” Amy looked outraged.

“I asked them to,” Rory smiled.  “There were days that… time would have torn itself apart, and I just didn’t care.  Those were bad days,” he said simply, and River wrapped an arm around him.

He circled back to the war, describing the day Steve left them and he lost Peggy’s friendship.  Of the end of the war, and going back to New York.  Of reconciling with Peggy, after being hit by a cross-town bus.

“Never by halves, Ren,” the Doctor said, shaking his head.

He did not speak of his courtship of Peggy.  He spoke of returning to school and of SHIELD being formed.  Then, after seeming to struggle for a moment, he said, “I’m sorry, Amy.  I mean, I’m not sorry, but...”

“What?” she looked baffled.

“I…” he sighed.  “In 1949, I married Meg Carter.”  He looked as though he expected her to be very angry.

“Rory, we know,” Amy said, smiling.  “It’s all right.  She wrote Jack a letter, and us.  She…” she looked at the Doctor, who nodded.  “She asked us to come show her how fixed points work.”

“When?” he asked, surprised.

“1947.”

Rory nodded.  He looked at Jack.  “You never took her anywhere with the vortex manipulator, did you?”

Jack grinned and shook his head.

“You’re not angry?” he asked Amy.

“You were seventy years away.  Why would I mind?” Amy smiled and touched his cheek.  “You were built to love, Rory.  No way I would begrudge you the love of someone who loved you.”

Rory bit his lip, feeling his chin wobble.  “She did.  She did love me.  For sixty-seven years.  And I love her, still.”

Brian came to sit by Rory, wrapping an arm around him as he tried to compose himself.  “That’s a good, long marriage, Son,” he said, at a loss as to what else he could say.  It was mind-boggling that his son, who did not look a day over thirty (and only that old because he seemed exhausted, and that scar…), had clearly been widowed very recently, if his maths were anything to go by.

When Rory had calmed, he turned to the page in the scrapbook with the picture of Rory smiling down at his bride.  On the facing page was a picture of Colonel Phillips escorting Peggy down the aisle.

“She always was a looker,” Jack admired. 

“She was magnificent,” Rory said quietly.  “Brilliant and brave and as beautiful the day she died as the day we met.”

Rory swallowed his tears and went on to describe freelancing with SHIELD and meeting his sixteen year-old grandfather in Korea.

“That was you?” Brian sputtered.  “With the sword?”

Rory grinned and nodded. 

“And so that was you and… Peggy, in Leadworth?”

Rory nodded again.  He turned to the picture of Peggy holding young Brian, his parents smiling in the background.  Brian was shaking his head.

Rory told them about leaving medicine and choosing other fields of study.  It was only with difficulty that he was able to them about Brian Carter Williams.  About Uri Vostov.  About the shadow that had been cast over the defense of his first doctoral thesis as Peggy’s misstep had injured their marriage.  About what Vostov had done.  And what Rory had then done, in turn.

“Wait.  You what?” Jack said, trying to figure out what Rory had done.  Or rather, how he had done it.

“What do you mean, a bubble?” the Doctor frowned.

Rory felt ill.  “They brought him to me.  Brian.”  He turned to the picture.  “He was… Gods, he was in so much pain.  He was so afraid.  And I just… I just knew what to do.”  He described gently nudging into the child’s mind and taking away the pain and fear.  Taking it into his own mind.  Locking it away, in a sort of bubble.  “It… it made what little bit of time he had… not agony.”

Now it was the Doctor who reached out and embraced Rory.  “Shhh.  You were brilliant, Ren.  It was the only thing that could have been done, and it was the greatest gift you could have given him.  Look,” he said, looking at the picture.  “This is not a child in pain and anguish.  He is _happy_ , Rory.  You did what every parent longs to do.  You gave your child a happy life.”

Rory sniffed, then nodded.  “But what I did with it… the bubble.”  He felt shame rising, but he had to tell them.  He described finding Vostov.  Toying with him as he danced along the line between sanity and utter madness as though it were a knife’s edge.  Seriously considering killing everyone in sight, until a boy in a fez ran by and brought him back to his senses.  The shootout.  Toying with Vostov some more before nudging into his mind and placing the bubble there, along with a trigger.

“But how did you know how to do it?” the Doctor was much more preoccupied with Rory’s telepathic development than what he’d done to Vostov.

Rory shrugged.  “I just… felt my way along.  Like with the mathematics.  It just sort of unfolded before me, as I went.”

“I am seriously turned on, right now,” Jack grinned as River swatted him and Brian rolled his eyes.

“I thought you would be angry,” Rory said.  “You always said, ‘never without permission’, and all I could think, once it was done, was that what I’d done to him was no better than what he’d done to Meg.”

“You showed him the consequences of his actions, Rory.  Nothing more,” the Doctor was sorry that Rory had tormented himself over such a thing, for so long.  He drew him close, once more and offered every reassurance that he was not angry, and actually approved of the path Rory had chosen.

Rory described his injuries, and the healing coma, and how Howard, in trying to help him, caused complications.  Of his grief, of the TARDIS coming to him, of being mute for a third of a year.

He described his next PhD, and recruiting Canton, and nursing first the colonel, then his wife.  Two more PhD’s, then working with Nick Fury and Phil Coulson before completing another course of study, just before Amy was born. 

“Canton and Phil were there,” he said, pointing to the picture of Amy as an infant.  “Then the whole lot of them went to Leadworth,” he sniffed again.  Then he reached over and hugged his dad.  “Thank you for not naming me Stanley Archibald,” he said.

Brian leaned away from him.  “That group of crazy geriatrics…”

“My wife and our friends,” he smiled sadly.  He turned the page and there was the group, mugging for the camera.  He pointed out each of them, in turn.  The Starks.  The Jarvises.  The Dugans.  Canton and Phil.  Peggy.  “So if you really want to talk about the timey-wimey, then let’s talk about how you met my wife and let her hold me on the day I was born.”

He turned the page again.  And there was his Meg, looking quite beautiful, still, holding a very solemn baby.  Then a picture of Brian holding Rory.

“I never really would have named you Stanley,” Brian said.

Rory nodded.  “I know.”  He flipped the page back.  “They never would have allowed it.”

The Doctor felt it only right to mention that he, Amy, River and Jack had met the group, that day.  Rory nodded, finally understanding their extraordinary mood, when they returned.

Rory spoke more slowly as he talked about the next decade.  The next PhD.  Losing the Starks, and then Jarvis.  And later, Dugan.  Of living with three mad women and not being allowed to laugh at their antics.  Of advocating for Natasha because she reminded him of Melody.  Of Ana passing.  Of the madness of remembering a year that had not happened – twice.

“Doctor,” Rory said quietly.  “It was before you came back, and we didn’t know that regeneration of you.  But… _he_ brought Amy and me aboard the _Valiant_.”

The Master had rounded up every companion he could suss out, past and future.  He already had Jack.  Sarah Jane.  Donna.  Wilf.  Amy.  Rory.  Rory remembered being dragged onto the _Valiant_.  There was an old man in a wheelchair. 

“That was you, wasn’t it?” he asked.  The Doctor nodded.  He had buried the memory of future companions, not wanting to inadvertently interfere with timelines.  Now, it all came back.  The young kiss-o-gram and her weedy boyfriend in nurse’s scrubs.

Amy had broken free and clawed the living hell out of the Master’s face before he could throw her off of him.  As he bore down on her, he projected to both of them everything he planned to do to her before he would allow her to die.  Every violation, every torment his little pets could devise.

Rory reached her first and snapped her neck. 

“That’s three times,” he whispered.

“He would have done everything he threatened,” Jack said, having picked up what Rory was remembering.  “I know, because he did it to every member of my team, as he captured them,” his voice broke.  “If I could have…  You did the right thing.”

Even Amy and Brian, who were not seeing the memories Rory could not keep from projecting, understood what must have happened.  Amy understood all too well what ‘three times’ meant.  “What did he do to you?” she asked, her voice quavering.  She had heard about the year that never was.  She had not realized she had participated, quite so actively.

Rory frowned.  “I don’t really remember.  There were knives.  There was pain, but it… it was quick, I think.”

“Rory went into a rage,” the Doctor murmured.  “He just about throttled the Master to death, despite his respiratory bypass.  The toclafane… dismembered him before the Master could recover.  He lost his chance to toy with both of you.”

Rory gave a shiver.  “Well, this time around, I was in the resistance.  Clint and Nat died getting Martha to the rendezvous point, but we got her on the ship, back to England.”  He shook his head.  “It was…” he squeezed his eyes shut.  “And then it wasn’t.  It just… wasn’t.  And I was the only one to remember.  It reminded me of when I was the only one who remembered the stars.”

“You’re the one,” Jack said.  “Peg called me and asked me if something had happened.  I told her to send anyone who remembered my way.”

“Yeah, so we could have a side of paradox with our Retcon,” Rory chuckled.

Jack laughed.

Rory forged ahead.  He talked about finishing his last degree, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing the mobile first aid stations, for after the battle.  The battle, itself.  And after, in one of the stations, giving medical care until the supplies ran out.  About moving to Stark Tower, because their apartment building had been destroyed.

He told them about nursing Ellis and Canton and Angie, and then he went quiet for a while before describing his Meg’s diagnosis.  He talked about the fall of SHIELD and Uri Vostov making one last attempt on their lives.  He told them about Thor bringing the elderflower and how well it worked, until the supply ran out, after Thor had gone off world. 

He talked about how training with the team had been his outlet, keeping him grounded as he dealt with Peggy’s illness.  He spoke of her fear the day the Accords were mentioned on the news.  He choked as he told them what she had done, of his fear, despite what Natasha believed, that his Meg had done this thing, because of him.

Then he described the argument with Ross, and being captured on his way to the funeral.  He did not give details about what had happened at the Raft.  Now Amy and River were clinging to him as he told them what he could bear to describe.  It was far more than it would have been, without what Jack and the Doctor had done for him.  As it was, he was trembling as he described the manacles, the whip, the prod, the fists.

It was with relief that he told them about his rescue, and about his time in Wakanda.  When he was finally done speaking, he fell asleep with his head in Amy’s lap.  They all fell asleep for some time, trying to take in the lifetime Rory had described to them.  So much joy, so much sorrow, so much love, so many friends.  And now, he had a wife to mourn, as well as a life that had now come to an end.  It was merely the close of a chapter, but it was still something to honor the passing of.

***


	7. He is the Sun

When they woke, the Doctor told Rory that Peggy had been especially taken with the Indigo Nebula.  She had actually climbed out onto the top of the TARDIS to watch it.  She had asked to see it because Rory had told her it was one of the most beautiful things he’d seen, in his travels.

Rory smiled.  As many secrets as his wife was forced to keep, he knew that she did not enjoy keeping them, from him.  So it gave him a bittersweet pang that she had told him that she had dreamt of something so beautiful, it took her breath away.  She had described something not unlike the Orion Nebula, though the colors were more violet and indigo than pink.  When they had spoken of her wishes, she had asked him to find a place like that, to scatter her ashes.

When they arrived at the nebula, Rory scrambled out and up onto the top of the TARDIS.  Jack handed him Peggy’s urn.  He gazed out at the nebula, then down at the plain wooden urn, and he began to speak, aware that the others were gathered at the door, listening.  This was his chance to honor his wife, since he had missed her funeral.

“I miss you, Meg,” he said, his voice low as he opened the box.  He was relieved to see that one of his beloveds – likely Jack – had taken the ashes out of the bag and disposed of the latter.  “You made everything… first, you made it bearable, and then you made it worthwhile.  I do not regret being sent back, and that’s down to you and the friends you helped me make.  The education you encouraged me to pursue.  The life you helped me live as fully as any man could.  Thank you, my Love.  For everything.”

He felt a current of air stirring, and thanked the TARDIS for her assistance as he slowly tipped the ashes into the current.  He watched as it trailed its way towards the nebula.  He sang some of her favorite songs as the current carried her away from him.  He sat there and stared until he could no longer see any trace of the ashes, even in his imagination.  And then he stayed, slowly breaking up the urn into bits no larger than matchsticks and sending them into the current, as well.

It was hours later when Rory finally climbed back into the TARDIS.  Jack and his father were there, and as his knees buckled in exhaustion, they both held him as he wept. 

The Doctor and River had taken Amy off into the depths of the TARDIS to begin some psychic training.  The Doctor had realized that until Rory was less grief-stricken, he would pick up on stray thoughts with far too much ease.  And knowing that Amy could be even more blunt and insensitive than him, he felt that giving her some psychic shielding could only help Rory, and could also protect her from any psychic bleed that he could not prevent.

Frankly, Amy was terrified.  Rory was mourning a woman who had grown old with him by her side.  He said she had been beautiful and brave and brilliant and magnificent, and Amy was certain that Rory’s Meg had never called him ‘stupidface’.  She felt like a child by comparison, and was certain that Rory would see her that way.

“Mother, you can’t let him see you comparing yourself with Peggy.  He won’t have it in him to reassure you, nor should he have to.  You are both amazing women, in your own rights.  But you can’t expect a strawberry to live up to a blackberry, now can you?  And you know that deep down, he will not be comparing you.  It’s not how his mind works.  He doesn’t sit and compare Jack to the Doctor, does he?”

Amy frowned.  “No, of course not.  I just…” she sighed.  “He just spent almost eighty years, with no one being mean to him.  I don’t think he’s going to put up with it, now.”

“Well, he went almost two thousand years, and it didn’t make a difference,” the Doctor smiled wryly. 

Amy did not look reassured.

“Besides,” River smiled.  “He probably missed it.  He knows it’s just your way.”

Amy became quite adept with the psychic shielding, though it did take some practice.  She could tell when she needed to pay better attention when she would silently react to something Rory said and watch his shoulders hunch.  She learned how to soften those moments, take him in her arms, and soothe the tension with kisses and tender words.

She found that the experience softened and matured her in ways she never could have expected.  Seeing how, even with the time apart and the distractions of that life, Rory’s love for Amy had remained as strong as ever humbled her.  And realizing that his love for Peggy had not wavered, even as she had aged, reassured her in ways she had never been willing to admit she needed, knowing she faced a similar fate.

***

A few days after the trip to the nebula, Rory found the Doctor working under the console.  The Doctor felt him approach, felt his uncertainty.  He waited for Rory to speak.

“Theta?” Rory asked tentatively.

The Doctor came out from where he was working.  Rory only called him that in the most intimate settings.  He sensed a vulnerability from his Centurion that made him want to gather him into his arms, but he merely looked at Rory, giving him his full attention.  “Yes, Ren?”

Rory was looking at his toes.  “Can… can you…” he swallowed, clearly unsure as to whether he even wanted to ask his question.  “…do something about my scars?”

The Doctor schooled his features.  Nodded.  “I can, but it can be painful.  And it can stir up the memories…”

Rory nodded.  “You never said.”

“I told you, Ren,” he said, giving in to his instincts and standing to embrace Rory.  “I do not care.  You are beautiful, scars or no.  I did not want you to think, if I suggested it, that I find you any less beautiful.”

“I… thank you,” Rory stepped away, his eyes bright.  “But I think…” he sighed.  “I think I need them gone.  Jack says not to rush it – that sometimes, not having the scars can be really hard.  But I’ve had them for a while, now.”  It had been almost five months.  His own reflection still made him flinch.  “I can’t get used to them.  I mean, I think… maybe you can help me to know, for sure, but I think I have accepted what happened, dealt with it.  And yet, every time I see them it’s a shock.”

Rory was pulling at the shirt sleeves of his Henley top – which, the Doctor noted, was buttoned all the way up to his neck.  Rory had the right side of his face turned away from the Doctor, as had become usual.  The Doctor had noticed these ticks – Rory trying to hide his scars from his loved ones. 

He had become slightly more withdrawn, as well, though this could be down to his grieving.  He spent a good deal of his time alone, doing forms in the garden with his sword or swimming.  He spent hours each day in the wing chair in his old room – the one he’d had when he returned after what he now referred to as his exile in Leadworth.  The one he lately retreated to when he needed to be alone.  Not that they let him isolate himself too much.  One of them would always find him, at least to have dinner with his family.  And he never slept alone, though the Doctor spent his nights with River.

The Doctor reached out, holding his hands out to either side of Rory’s head, making his intention clear.  “May I?”

At Rory’s nod, the Doctor took Rory’s head in his hands and pressed their foreheads together.  He nudged in, and the beauty of what Rory’s mind had become took his breath away.  It wasn’t the first time he had sensed it, but each subsequent time made it no less amazing. 

Rory’s brain structure had likely not settled until well into his first decade in the past.  Once it had, Rory’s hunger for learning had taken hold.  That is why each course of study had been so exciting and satisfying.  Each new subject helped the structure to open like a blossom. 

Once his knowledge began to expand and neural pathways began to grow, his psychic abilities began to blossom.  His first real opportunity to explore that had been… well, best not to retread that ground, but his subsequent practice with Peggy had helped that ability to entrain.

The Doctor was almost swept away, but shortly remembered what he was there for, and quickly found what he needed.  As he leaned away from Rory, he looked into his eyes.  “You are so beautiful, Ren,” he whispered, brushing his lips against Rory’s in invitation, knowing Rory could feel the sincerity of his praise.

Rory blushed, and it took everything he had for the Doctor not to molest his lover where they stood.  Then Rory leaned in, kissing the Doctor tenderly. 

 _Thank you_. 

The Doctor moaned and deepened the kiss.  They were quite occupied for some time after that, but when they calmed, Rory asked, “Well?”

“I don’t think it would set you back, in terms of healing from the trauma,” he answered.  “As long as you’re patient, and we take it very slowly.  As I said… healing the scar tissue may feel like receiving each injury, all over again.”

Rory nodded.  “Can you start with the one on my face?”

Depending on which scars they were healing, either Jack, Amy, River or Brian would join him, holding his hand as the Doctor healed him.  It was painful, and the memories were not easy, but it did help him to process everything that had happened, to deal with the pain and trauma and move on.  It took many sessions over many weeks, and a few near panic attacks, but eventually he was once more free of scars, even the one from the Weevil bite. 

***

Thaddeus Ross entered his home and, not planning to leave it again that evening, set the security perimeter.  He was in a terrible mood.  Several weeks before, the quinjet full of mercenaries had crashed, with no evidence that they had been scrambled for anything other than one of Stark’s minions placing some flowers on his grandmother’s grave on her birthday. 

The crash had been a clusterfuck, with him ending up having to explain the “exercise” to the few to whom he answered.  And he knew they were not satisfied with his answers.  Worse yet, according to his sources, Rory fucking Williams was still in the wind.

He knew he shouldn’t be surprised.  He had to begrudgingly admit that the man was good, on his own.  With the help of the likes of Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov, even if they were on the run, he would be damned near unfindable. 

Ross moved into his study.  He poured a scotch without turning on a light and sat down tiredly in the chair before his desk.  Then someone else turned on the lights.

The man himself, as though a demon conjured from hell, sat casually in the chair across from him.  A man in a vintage military greatcoat was sprawled in one of the wingchairs by the fireplace, his long legs stretched out straight and crossed at the ankles.  Another man wearing tweed and a bowtie was leaned against the mantle, holding some sort of pen-like device.  A woman with wild curls leaned against the wall to the left of his desk.  A woman with ginger hair and rage in her eyes stood behind Williams.

So.  Not in the wind.  Successfully reunited with his family.  Ross sat back in his chair.  By all accounts, the Doctor was a pacifist.  Williams had always had a frustratingly peaceable bent, given his skillset.  The others he knew little of, but they would all very likely follow Williams’ lead.  And, Ross thought with a vicious smile, he knew he had traumatized the man enough that he was confident he could keep the upper hand.

Williams had a book in his hand.  He looked down and opened it to where his finger had been holding a spot.  He began to read, “In fact, the only real, quote-unquote _accomplishment_ that can be credited to Secretary of State Ross during his time in office is his ruthless, quote-unquote _sponsorship_ of the ill-advised, ethnocentric, and ultimately unsuccessful Sokovia Accords.  This was not a statesman for the twenty-first century, but rather a throwback to isolationist, intolerant, nationalistic parties of the early to mid-twentieth century.”

Rory snapped the book shut and held it up so Ross could see – it was an _Encyclopaedia Historica: a Retrospective on Earth History, Volume 10: The Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Centuries_.  Ross blanched.  All of the things he’d done, and that’s all the history books could say about him?

Rory sighed.  “You know, it’s not too late for you to change how history views you.  But you’re not going to, are you?  You still think that your hatred is justified.  You hated Meg, just because she was a woman.”

“She should never have been the Director of SHIELD,” Ross sneered.

“Why not?  She was more than capable.  She acquitted herself with distinction and honor.”

Ross blustered on about her sentimentality and weakness.  But Rory articulately rebutted every argument he could mobilize.  He quickly realized that he had no answer that could hold up under the arguments of the one man who had actually witnessed those years.

“If you are not convinced by this,” Rory held up the volume once more before handing it to Amy, “then I think we’re done here.”  He stood.  Then he paused.  “Of course, it might help give you some perspective, to know…” he looked at the Doctor, as though asking a question.

Jack looked quickly from Rory to the Doctor, as did River.  Amy kept her eyes on Ross.  The Doctor had banked his rage, hoping to quell it to a degree.  However, seeing the man almost gloating over what he had done almost undid him.  He gave Rory a deliberate nod.  Rory needed to stand up to this man, who had become the bogeyman of his nightmares, despite their best efforts.

Rory circled the desk, going around the opposite side from River.  Ross looked at the desk drawer holding his Colt .45.  Just looked, but before his eyes even landed on the handle of the drawer, the one with the mad curls was pointing a very nasty looking gun at him.

“Don’t worry,” Rory grinned.  He found that now, when he wasn’t manacled to the wall, he didn’t find Ross very scary or intimidating, at all.  It helped to see how history had thankfully seen him for what he was.  He had read several accounts, but the _Historica_ was his favorite for drawing the parallels between Ross’ views and those of fascist regimes and German nationalism.

He stepped into Ross’ space, still smiling.  And just as Vostov had been chilled by Rory’s dance with insanity, Ross was equally alarmed by the calm certainty in the man before him.  He was at peace, as though he knew he was about to lay a demon to rest.  Ross shuddered.

“Shhh,” Rory whispered, leaning in.  He touched his forehead to Ross’.  “You just need to know what it is you do.” 

Rory had been able to parse out those experiences, tucking away the pain and the anguish.  For each ‘session’ with Ross, he had a vivid memory of the pain inflicted.  It was the days where no questions were asked that were the most difficult to reconcile.  Where Ross had just wanted to “make him sing”.  Rory had particular memories of beatings and the use of the whip and prod, and the adrenaline. 

He took a moment and gathered together fifteen seconds of each experience.  A mere minute.  And he put that minute into a bubble, and passed it along to Ross, with a trigger word.

He stepped away from Ross.  “You probably won’t care about the pain you’ve inflicted.  But it seems right, for you to experience just a taste of it.”  He turned to River, who seemed the angriest of them, for what had happened.  “Melody, Love?”

“Yes, Father?” she smiled.

“Ask me my wife’s name.”

River smiled a wicked smile.  Ross began to sweat.  “What’s her name, Roar?”

“Meg.”

Ross may not have mended his ways in any material way that changed how history viewed him, but he knew firsthand what his actions wrought.

At the end of the day, that was all a time traveler who didn’t want to interfere with timelines could hope for.

***

They all travelled together for a few months, going to beautiful places that allowed Rory to grieve and heal.  There were adventures, as well, and the joy of travelling with his beloveds once more helped him more than anything else to move on from his grieving, once he was done.  They all gave him the time and space to do the thing properly, and once he was ready to emerge from it, it was like a rebirth.

Everyone took the time to become slowly reacquainted with Rory, reconciling what had changed with what never could.  He was still Rory, of course.  But he was stronger.  He was developing into a powerful telepath, with help and training from Jack and the Doctor.  He was quickly becoming more of an expert at TARDIS repairs than Jack.  And he was far more knowledgeable in the subjects that would help him truly grasp the timey-wimey. 

The Doctor was hesitant to say that Rory might be smarter, because Rory had always been smart.  He was, after all, the only person the Doctor had ever bought aboard the TARDIS who knew, _through his own research_ , that it was another dimension.  That had irritated the Doctor, at the time.  But that Rory had formed that conclusion after “reading up” on things, well…  It was actually rather impressive.  And if he still found it a bit arousing, well, no one needed to know, except for perhaps the man himself, via a breathless confession in the dead of night.

But no one could say that Rory had not changed.  Not after seventy-six years, seven advanced degrees, life as an elite commando, years of training with the Avengers, and nursing almost every friend he had, soothing them to their final rest.

It had all made a tremendous impact.

And yet, he was still undeniably, irrevocably, quintessentially _Rory_.

Eventually River headed in her own direction and Brian was taken home, but Jack stayed for a while longer.  Rory was clinging to his beloveds for all he was worth, and none of them were inclined to object.  After all, they enjoyed their orbit around Rory, who was their light, their sun.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***  
> *****  
> ***  
> Epilogue
> 
> And then, one day, Idris came to Rory in a dream. “I think I know how to unfix my Lad, but you’re not going to like it…”  
> ***  
> *****  
> ***  
> Okay, wow. I finally finished this! Lots of love to everyone who has stuck through the whole series. It's been an awesome ride. I love me some Rory, and hopefully I've done him justice. Although... The more I rewatch the show, the less I like how he's treated. He's rendered pretty ineffective, time and time again. (Really, they don't let him even get one shot off at the Silence, when he stays behind with a killing eye drive? What the hell is that about?) And I admit to feeling a bit of ambivalence to Amy, which may be why there's more sweetness with Meg, the Doctor, and Jack. Amy's just kind of mean. But Rory loves her, so... Did my best, hope you like it. Please kudo and comment, if you do. :)
> 
> Let me know what you think of the possibilities in the "epilogue"... :D


End file.
